^^ &^fc*fe3fcs jT~^ **. t. 4 J- V ' / %!-"-: -> ^ _. \^ I k "\ * ~ ^^r y i^rffyp?^ ^; s5 ?/i*av^ ^ f~. \T ^-i+^Mtf: Z>i*f-* S$tt&t^?/&f^^ /^/P^^r^ > ^ ^ *- f V ^fi^ 1 ^^ i^^^^ W^^i ' *%.^^3^C^^^ A^V^^ " . ^tr^^^^:^Xl "... ^^w^^?^^ *> ix^v -x >^LW4 vP^ ,-*" t rA: -*--._/> V r-4YL^i^S'* ?^f^ '^^^ ^^9vg^^:^ ivz^^^^m; vk (^v^o*-;? , .^ r^> >^o<^* v> -^ X iix J^^A .^ t ^'' *x " -~, / f\** , -f . ^^ 1 ^n J* - v . ~c- 1 m^m^^s^^m^^&^^ - STEILIIG In material, workmanship and design the very best, and in richness and purity of tone not surpassed by any. Do not buy till you have examined the "STERLING," its prices and terms. FACTORIES. DERBY, CONN. MANUFACTURERS' WAREROOMS. No. 179-181 Wabash Avenue, CHICAGO, ILL. THE STERLING COMPANY. A $10 Book for 25 Cents. O O 3XT :E2L L 1 3XT ' ! MAITJAL OF USEFUL INFORMATION. THIS YEAR'S EDITION carefully revised and cor- rected to date. PRICE, ONLY 28 CENTS. It Juts 286 PAGES of closely printed matter, absolutely teeming with information on 2,OOO subjects. IT COHTAIHS 1,000,000 FACTS, AND MANY STATISTICAL TABLES Of practical value for Commercial Travelers, Mechanics, Merchants, Editors, Lawyers, Doctors, Printers, Painters, Farmers, Lumbermen, Bankers, Bookkeepers, Politicians, Housekeepers, and all classes of workers in every department of human effort; also a compilation of facts for ready reference that we guarantee can not be had in any other book or books at a cost of less than $10. It is an epitome of mattars Historical, Statistical, Biographical, Political, Geographical and of General Iriterest. No one who has seen the book can get along without it, and those who have a copy of it would not part with it for ten times its price. AGENTS WANTED. Single copies sent postpaid on receipt of 25 cents. LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS, COR. CLARK AND ADAMS STS., CHICAGO^ tSJU A DESPERATE WOMAN A NOVEL BY MRS M E HOLMES Author of " A Woman's Love," " Her Fatal Sin," " The Tragedy of Redmount," " Who Will Save Her?" " For a Woman's Sake," "A Heartless Woman," Etc. COPYRIGHT 1886 BY GEORGE W OGILVIE CHIC AGO LAIED & LEE PUBLISHEKS CLARK AND ADAMS STREETS 6 MYRTLE BLAKE. lecting pieces of burnt charcoal from a huge pile beside her, and adjusting them to crayon size, moved mechanically, while the dust-stained face showed a hollow pallor where the tears had coursed from eyes blinded to all save some cankering thought and the harrowing pictures which filled the desolate void before her vision. To this unhappy creature, doubly unhappy and wretched upon that cheerless Saturday night, a name had been bestowed which had become famil- iar to her. Sometimes in romantic badinage, oft- ener in sorrowful earnest, as they watched her dainty fingers become marred and blackened with the burnt pieces of wood, the working girls about her had called her Cinderella. It had clung to Myrtle Blake like the fine black dust of the work-room; it had suggested so much of childhood's memories of the famed fairy story, that she had answered to it first with a smile, then with a sigh, and finally with a despairing thought that only the misery and solitude of the Cinderella of fiction would be hers, in a hard struggle for bread for herself and her dying mother. She dropped the box into which she was placing the artist's crayons, started as from a painful rev- erie, and looked toward the little dark staircase leading into the apartment where she sat. " Drella! " A girl's voice had pronounced her name, a girl's form crossed her vision. " You are wanted," spoke the new-comer, a re- pressed excitement in her manner, " at home. One of your neighbors' boys just brought a message. " Myrtle Blake arose to her feet in quick alarm. Even beneath the grime of the dust, her face turned a shade whiter. " My mother," she gasped out; " she is worse?" The girl shook her head quickly and negatively. MYRTLE BLAKE. / " No, it is not that, I think; something about the rent." She paused confusedly. A pitying expression came into her eyes as Cinderella interrupted her. " The rent," broke bitterly from Myrtle Blake's lips. " It is as I feared. The blow has fallen at last. Thank you, Kitty," she murmured brokenly to her companion who stood regarding her sorrow- fully. " I must hasten home at once. " She hurried from the apartment as she spoke. She only stopped long enough in the waiting-room to remove the traces of her work from her face, to shake out the long golden curls from a protecting dust cap, discard the dirt-grimed working dress, and then she proceeded to the office of the estab- lishment. A fairer face, with its glorious crown of golden curling hair, and the blue fawnlike eyes, never looked forth to mortal view. For its innocence, however, the grasping cashier had only a frown as Cinderella timidly appeared at the window of his desk. " Well, what is it now? " he demanded gruffly. " My money, sir." Grasp & Throttle's cashier regarded her in cold- blooded stolidity. " Your money, and the work not done. You don't mean to say you'll leave us in the lurch with all that stock of crayons to get out." " I must, sir. It is only an hour's more work, any- way, and I must hurry home. See, sir, my mother is sick, dying perhaps, and the rent " She broke down in irrepressible sobs and tears. Every human face seemed to wear a mask of indif- ference and heartlessness. "Pay her." Grasp, senior member of the firm, grunted out the words from his desk without looking up. The 8 MYRTLE BLAKE. cashier reluctantly told out the amount as he held it in his talons-like fingers. " It is half a dollar more," began Cinderella. " Not when you leave work this way." Myrtle Blake choked down her disappointment and grief. With a despairing sigh she took up the paltry pittance and hastened to the street without. " Three dollars and a half, " she gasped, brokenly. " Not even enough to pay what is due. Will Bryce Williard carry his threat into effect and turn us out into the cold and storm? Oh! merciful Father, show me some way to protect my darling, dying mother from the cruel fate that threatens. " Her tears rivaled the glistening snowflakes as they fell from beneath her thin, unsheltering veil; her hands were clasped pitifully as she flew over the pavement; her face was a void of anxiety and de- spair as at last she turned into a desolate tenement street. The building which she finally entered was dilap- idated and illy protected against the storm and cold. Its doorless front and broken windows made the halls cold and uninviting, yet here for nearly two months Myrtle Blake and her mother had made their home, subsisting on the bare necessaries of life, the mother stricken with consumption, the ddjghter unable to obtain work until the preceding week. The girl's hand trembled as she turned the knob of a door on the second flight and entered a room scantily furnished. Upon a low couch in one cor- ner of the apartment, revealed dimly in the dusky light of the dying day, lay a thin, wasted form. " Mother!" Myrtle Blake flung herself at the side of the couch, and raised the pale, cold face of the invalid to gaze anxiously into its hollow depths. She read MYRTLE BLAKE. 9 a change since morning, a latent excitement in the hectic cheeks that told of some recent cause. " You sent for me," she murmured. "You are not worse? " " No, no; it was not for myself I sent. Bryce Williard, the landlord's agent, he has been here again. He is in the building now." Cinderella uttered a cry of despair. " And he threatens " she wailed. " That he will turn us out this hour unless the rent is paid. Oh, Myrtle, Myrtle, what is the cause of this man's cruel persecution? " Myrtle Blake arose to her feet as footsteps sounded in the hall without. "The cause!" her eyes flashing with honest indignation and emotion. " Can you ask? He is a human fiend, who crushes the poor, who has de- termined to crush us because I resented his insult- ing words and ordered him from the place. He shall be paid his rent. I have work now, and he dares not turn us out as long as we can pay what we owe him." The door had opened as she spoke. A man, whose dark, sinister face and crafty, gleaming eyes told of the villain and schemer, entered the apart- ment. He started slightly and frowned as he saw the girl standing protectingly by her mother's bedside. Then a gloating, sensual expression crossed his dark face, and he said: " Ah, you are here! I have just told your mother that I can wait no longer for the rent. " " Here it is. Now go." It was the last penny she had in the world, yet Myrtle Blake flung it at the cruel agent with a royal contempt and dignity that made the wretch tremble with rage. " Three dollars and a half," he muttered between IO MYRTLE BLAKE. his set teeth. " Very well, my haughty lady. That settles up to the first of last month. Now, then, the balance. " She reeled where she stood at the venomous words, at the latent threatening triumph in Bryce Williard's voice. " The balance," she faltered. " You must wait for that." The man glided to her side. " Not a day, not an hour," he hissed. " The law says pay or go. You fool, will you see your mother starve and die? Will you linger in poverty when you might be comfortable and rich if you would only agree to be mine? You'll come to it yet. I love you. Consent " "You co ward! " She had raised her clenched hands with a cry of awful anger; she beat back the leering, gloating face with all her woman's strength at the venomous insult of the sordid Williard. He ground his teeth with a snarling oath. He caught her hands in a grasp like iron., " You shall be mine," he hissed vindictively. "Help!" Her voice died in a gurgling moan, mingled with the feeble shriek of her terrified mother. She sank back to a chair, white and listless. "Fainted, eh?" muttered Williard. "She's plucky to the last; but I'll win her pretty face yet. Bartels?" He had gone to the door and called a man's name. Its possessor, a rough-visaged fellow, en- tered, cap in hand. " Move them out! " came determinedly from the villain's lips. " The old woman will be taken in by some of the neighbors." "And the girl?" " Tell the people if they dare to shelter or aid MYRTLE BLAKE. II her, I'll serve them the same. They're all in my debt, and won't dare to disobey." " But the legality of the proceeding? " .Williard laughed sardonically. " Don't fret about the proceeding being legal. Might makes right, when the poor haven't money enough to litigate. Move them out, I tell you." Mrs. Blake strove to lift herself to appeal to the inhuman wretch to refrain from his brutal work. He paid no attention to her, but proceeded to aid Bartels in moving out the articles of furniture. When they at last came to the couch upon which the sick woman lay, her silence and repose told of utter insensibility. Myrtle Blake awoke to consciousness with a startled scream. Not a single article of furniture remained in the apartment. A cold horror pos- sessed her heart as she realized it all. Then she dashed out into the hall and down the stairs like one mad. A woman stopped her at the landing, pale and frightened. " Your mother is in my rooms, Miss, and she seems very sick. Oh, that cruel, heartless Williard!. He is a demon in human form." The woman led the way to her own apartments and pointed to where the couch of the invalid had been placed. Mrs. Blake's thin fingers clung agitatedly to Myrtle's trembling hand as she hastened to her side. There was a wild glow in her eyes, an un- natural flush on the wasted cheeks. " Myrtle," she gasped faintly, " listen to me, for I feel that I am dying. Your father, from whom we have had no word, who disappeared when you were a child, there is a trace of him at last. Oh, this terrible pain! Water, water! " She was compelled to wait, gasping for breath, 12 MYRTLE BLAKE. for some moments. Myrtle, with staring eyes, lis- tened eagerly/ Was this some vagary of the sinking soul? Often she had heard her mother refer to her father's mysterious disappearance in her childhood, but except the memory of that father's love, and a little golden locket and chain about her neck, con- taining two portraits and ,a memorandum of her birth in her father's handwriting, she knew but little. " A letter came while you were gone," went on Mrs. Blake, painfully. " Amid the excitement, I could not tell you. It was from John Blake, your father, in trouble, under a cloud, but wishing to see you to tell you a mighty secret merciful heavens, it is gone!" The wan face fell as the thin hand sought the cherished epistle in her dress. " Gone!" cried Myrtle. " You have lost it; but its contents?" A wild shriek of excitement issued from Mrs. Blake's lips. " He has it! Bryce Williard has robbed me of even that. Seek him, force him to return it, or he will do us a still deeper injury. Wrest it from him, or have him apprehended as a thief." Amid her wild excitement the invalid lifted her- self to a sitting posture. The reaction was a fatal one, for she fell back, gasping for breath, as Myrtle moved to obey her mandate. A choking sob rent the bloodless lips of the un- happy girl as she reached the little yard at the rear of the place. Scattered around promiscuously was the furniture of their humble home, and standing guard over it was the mercenary Williard. A half-frightened, silent throng peered from the open doorways at the scene, evading the threaten- ing of Bryce Williard, the hated agent, whose lightest word might render them homeless. Honest MYRTLE BLALE. 13 sympathy for the unfortunate ones was depicted on more than one homely face. Myrtle Blake went straight to the side of Williard. " You have rendered us homeless," she choked out. " You have carried out the law, and you have robbed us. Bryce Williard, I demand from you the letter my mother received half an hour since, stolen from her when she lay insensible." The villain turned a sneering face on his beauti- ful suppliant. " A letter! What letter?" he demanded. " You know well enough. Your evil face cannot conceal the truth. The letter, Bryce Williard, or I will have you arrested " For a moment the man was silent. Every evil trait of his nature passion, revenge, hate were depicted in his dark features, as he fixed a terrible glance upon her; but she never quailed. " You'll have me arrested!" he hissed out. " Take care, girl. You have refused my honorable ad- vances; but I have sworn to drive you to accept me, and I will gain my object. You get no letter from me. You will be driven out homeless and friendless this very hour unless you agree to become mine." A shudder of repugnance that thrilled Bryce Williard to the keenest rage crossed the fair, proud face. She turned from him with a determined light in her eyes. " By heavens, you shall go with me!" he cried, catching at her arm, his hand coming in contact with the little golden chain upon her fair neck, and tearing it away as he spoke. Myrtle noted not the action, but struggled wildly to free herself, as he caught her waist with his other hand. " The carriage, Bartds! Is it still in front?" he demanded. "Yes." 14 MYRTLE BLAKE. He dragged Myrtle across the yard, amid her shrieks and excitement. Neither had noticed a new arrival; neither had heard the jingle of merry sleigh- bells. " Release me, fiend, monster; you shall be pun- ished for this. Help! help! help!" Bryce Williard pressed his hand over her mouth and dragged her toward the gateway. A startled ejaculation broke from his lips, and he released his hold, as he reeled under a terrible blow. Down like a shot he went, prostrate upon the ground. One flitting glance he had of a handsome young face, bent darkly indignantly upon his own, of a manly form catching to a sheltering embrace the half-fainting Myrtle Blake. " You scoundrel, lie there!" The man who had delivered the blow and rescued the imperiled Myrtle from the villain's grasp seemed choking with indignation and rage. "Villain!" he cried, "but for this poor girl, I would thrash you within an inch of your life. This ends your being employed as my uncle's agent. Go, ere I punish you as you deserve." Myrtle Blake had cast but one grateful look at her rescuer, to recognize him as Percy Grey, the nephew of the owner of the tenements. Twice she had seen him before. Pride had shrank from telling him of her utter poverty once, but her misery had caused her to give way to her emotions now, and, her golden head pillowed on his breast, she wept like a child. " My poor girl," murmured Percy Grey, brokenly. " Heaven keep the unfortunate from such men as Bryce Williard. Little does my uncle suspect his true character; but this terminates his employment. Let me lead you to the house." He signaled the occupant of an elegant sleigh outside to wait, spoke a few words in a stern, A FATEFUL SECRET. 1$ menacing tone to Bartels to replace the furniture in the vacant rooms, and crossed the threshold of the structure with Myrtle. The woman who had befriended her mother stood weeping at the door of her room. Myrtle cast one quick, anxious glance at her face. Then she stepped across the floor and flung herself be- side the couch. In a paroxysm of emotion, the floodgates of the soul released at last, she wailed over and over again her mother's beloved name, imploring her to speak to her, to arouse from the spell of lethargy into which she seemed to have sunk. Percy Grey moved toward the couch reverently, with shadowed face. His hand touched the pulse- less brow of the invalid, and he started. Then it fell to the golden head of Myrtle, as if in a silent benediction. "Mother, oh, mother, speak to me!" wailed Myrtle. " My poor girl, you call in vain! " broke from Percy Grey's lips. " God of the orphans, be mer- ciful to this stricken child! Your mother is dead." CHAPTER II. A FATEFUL SECRET. THE rage of a demon was pictured in Bryce Williard's face, as he struggled to his feet and glared after Percy Grey and the rescued Myrtle. "Baffled!" he hissed out. "Ruined through that girl. I played a bold game and I have lost." He did not wait to listen to the grating jeers of the tenants. He ground his teeth, clenched his hands, passed out of the broken gate, and set his steps in the deepening dusk to leave the vicinity as soon as possible. 16 A FATEFUL SECRET. "Williard!" He stopped abruptly. What he had not noticed before he discovered now. Percy Grey on a drive for pleasure had taken the whim to pass by the tenements, and the sleigh, with its richly capari- soned steeds, stood where he had left it when he hastened to the rescue of Myrtle Blake. He had a companion in his drive. A woman marvelously beautiful, but of a type strongly contrasting with that of the pure, innocent Myrtle Blake, sat hold- ing the lines. There was a jealous expression in the eyes fixed upon the doorway through which Percy Grey and Myrtle had just passed, a quiver of the red lips, which told of the deepest emotion. She beckoned to Willard with an imperative hand. She fixed her dark, searching eyes upon him as he came forward with ready alacrity. " What has happened? " she demanded in hushed tones. " The worst. Curse that girl and your meddling Grey. How came he here at this time to spoil my well-laid plans? " " You fool!" muttered the woman, "have you no more sense than to ruin the chances I secured for you by attempting to kidnap a girl in broad day- light? " " It's ended now; chances and all," sullenly re- plied Williard; " but I'll have the girl yet, and I'll get my revenge on Percy Grey through her." "Who is that girl?" An interested light came into Williard's eyes as he studied the siren-like face before him. "Ah!" he cried, mockingly, " I understand you now. Jealous, eh? Well, between your chances of winning Percy Grey and yonder girl's, I pro- nounce in favor of the latter." A deadly flash came into Blanche Vansant's face. A FATEFUL SECRET. I 7 " Do not trifle with me/'' she murmured hotly. "What do you mean?" " That not content with being Ansel Grey's sec- retary, you wish to be his nephew's bride. Well and good; but if I mistake not, Percy Grey's pre- vious visits here indicate a preference for the pale- faced beauty I have sworn to gain." Even beneath the dusky color of the beautiful face a deep pallor settled as she set her lips tightly. " Bryce Williard," she whispered, touching his hand tremblingly with her gloved one, " I love Percy Grey as I do my own soul, and I would mur- der yonder pale-faced child ere I saw him won from me. What do you know of her? " " Nothing except that she is marvelously fair and hold! Blanche Vansant, you and I have mutual secrets and mutual interests. You are jealous of this girl, I of Percy Grey. Will you aid me to carry out my plans if I pledge myself to cure him of any fancy he may have for Myrtle Blake?" " Try me," replied the woman, excited. " Then meet me to-night at eight o'clock at the Apollo Concert Rooms. I think I know a way to gain my point yet. Ha! Grey is coming." He was coming, and Williard heard the woman murmur a quick assent as Percy Grey came hastily toward the sleigh. " You can drive home, if you wish, Miss Van- sant," he said in an agitated tone. " There is misery in yonder house that demands my attention. Please inform my uncle that I shall be detained for some time." The woman bowed silently. There was a venge- ful click of her white, regular teeth as she touched up the spirited steeds. " He loves the girl they call Myrtle Blake. He is at least deeply interested in her," murmured the siren hissingly. " Oh, Percy, Percy! for one kindly Desperate 2. 1 3 A FATEFUL SECRET. embrace, such as you bestowed upon her, I would give my very soul!" She whipped up the horses to a reckless rate of speed to keep pace with her wayward thoughts. The biting wind, the thrilling exercise of driving, aroused her blood to fever heat, vying in its intensity with the surging emotions of her passion- ate heart. She loved Percy Grey. When, two months pre- viously, she had become secretary to his crochety old uncle, the grand old mansion had no charms for her when Percy was absent. His treatment of her had been that of ordinary respect and courtesy, yet she had hoped that the occasional drives he in- vited her to might lead to a better understanding, for she believed him heart free. Until now! Now, with woman's ready tact, she divined the reason of his abstracted manner for two days past. Her own aspiring mind knew that wealth might descend to poverty for love's sweet sake, and she thought of her meeting with Williard with hope and impatience. They had been schemers in the past, and she had secured for him the posi- tion he now held. The dark secrets of years agone made them mutually friendly. With elements of love and re- venge to urge on the crafty Williard, she believed she should yet win her way. She reached her own room in the elegant avenue mansion, and assuming a more modest attire, de- scended to the library. The thin, selfish face of Ansel Grey betokened no interest as she informed him of Percy's absence. She chilled apprehen- sively, however, as he said finally, in a cold, steady tone: "Sit down." He had turned over a pile of papers at his hand. A FATEFUL SECRET. 19 " The letters you wrote for me to the Cincinnati agents have brought no satisfactory answers," he said. " They must be seen personally." A quick light came into Blanche's dark face. " Why not send Mr. Grey, your nephew?" she insinuated vaguely, seeing in his absence an oppor- tunity for Williard to carry out his plans. " Your suggestion is a good one. I will send Percy. As to yourself, Miss Vansant, I am sorry to state that I shall have to dispense with your services." Blanche Vansant recoiled with a shock. " Dispense with my services?" she gasped out. " Yes, as soon as we have gone through the re- maining papers here, which may possibly consume a week's time. I intend to travel for my health, and Percy can manage my affairs during my absence." Blanche Vansant murmured unintelligibly and arose to her feet. She was sick at heart, alarmed, dismayed. To leave that mansion now might defeat her every hope and aspiration. Once separated from Percy Grey, the frail chance of ordinary friendship would be severed forever. A bitter sigh broke from her lips as she closed the library door. It was followed by a jealous glare in her deep set eyes as she glided to an alcove. Percy Grey had entered the corridor and was proceeding to his apartments. One glance at his face verified all Bryce Williard had said, for beneath its serious, thoughtful expression were a latent sentiment of newly awakened interest, a meditative gleam in the clear, open eyes, that told that his thoughts were tender ones. She oaused as he addressed her, murmuring a formal apology for having left her to drive home alone. , The dark-eyed siren listened with her most be- 3O A FATEFUL SECRET. witching smile, but her brow darkened as with an abstracted air Percy Grey proceeded to his apart- ment. " She has trapped him with her innocent ways, and pretty face," hissed the siren darkly. " Oh, I must not lose this golden opportunity of love and wealth. Eight o'clock," she continued, glancing at her watch. " Williard will be waiting for me. He must aid me to remove the girl from my path, to enable me to carry out my cherished plans." She emerged from the house by a side entrance, her form well concealed by a long cloak, a veil hiding her face. The appointment with Williard was a mile way, but she traversed the distance rapidly. It was a popular restaurant, and she found Williard seated at a table in an obscure corner of the place and awaiting her impatiently. She was curious at the smile of secret satisfaction on his sinister face as he addressed her. " It is well you came," he said. " There is no time to lose. Blanche Vansant, I promised to aid you for mutual cooperation in my plans. The opportunity for a master stroke has come. " " What mean you? " "That what affects this girl, Myrtle Blake, affects Percy Grey, for his attention to her this afternoon shows plainly that he is deeply interested in her. Blanche Vansant's lips trembled visibly. " He befriended her? " she demanded huskily. " He reinstated her in the old rooms, provided for every want, assumed the care of her mother's funeral. He loves her; he is fool enough to make her his wife. " " It shall never be!" Williard laughed gleefully. " No, it will never be, because within forty-eight hours he shall believe her anything but the innocent A FATEFUL SECRET. 21 child she appears, because I shall carry out my plans. Now, listen. This afternoon a letter came to Mrs. Blake. It was from the husband she be- lieved dead, and has not seen for many long years. I found that letter. The mother is dead, and the daughter knows nothing of its contents. " " How can that affect us? " " Be patient and you shall know. The letter begged the mother to come or send her daughter to a little boat-house on the banks of the river. I went instead. I found John Blake. I pretended to be a messenger from his family. I promised to send to him his child this very hour, to learn from his dying lips a secret he would not impart to me, for it affects a royal fortune. " The woman's eyes became interested. " Well," she demanded, " you promised him, and you intend " " That the secret shall be ours, important or not, for it enables a better knowledge of Myrtle Blake and her father's affairs. You must personate Myrtle Blake and learn John Blake's secret from his dying lips." The other started violently. " I," she cried vaguely. " The deception would be discovered." " After over ten years' absence from his child? No, trust me for that. Here's the necklace John Blake gave his daughter. Wear it. Do as I bid you and, believe me, you will meet with a surprise that will aid you in your scheme to secure Percy Grey." There was a crafty expression in Williard's eyes as he spoke. The woman was about to question him, but he said, abruptedly: " Are you willing? " " Yes." " Then come." 22 A FATEFUL SECRET. He led the way from the place as he spoke and strolled toward the deserted thoroughfare leading to the river. They at last reached the verge of the desolate dock and proceeded to a spot a few rods down the shore. " Do not falter," he breathed intensely, as he left her side. " It is the first step toward the attainment of our mutual schemes. I will see you to-morrow night. Then to crush out the new hope from the heart of the woman I have sworn to gain, and the man you love so passionately." He was gone, and Blanche Vansant stood alone, vaguely chilled at her dreary surroundings. A more desolate spot than that she finally reached could not well be conceived. A dozen or more dismantled structures, employed as boat pavilions and storage-houses marked the deserted banks of the river. She came to a halt at last, and strove to quiet her excited nerves, as she saw the rude, rough boat-house Williard had alluded to. Through the chinks in the boards a dim light was visible. She pressed her face to one of these, and for a few moments was silently engaged in viewing the in- terior of the hut. Upon a rude bench lay a thin, wasted figure that of a man prematurely old. His close-cropped hair was white as snow, his thin face and closed eyes told of intense suffering, while the tremulous moans that escaped his lips betokened a serious ill- ness. Upon a stool stood a bottle of some dark mixture, and a candle burned low and dim. The woman hesitated. This was Myrtle Blake's father, this the possessor of the vaunted fortune. She began to doubt Bryce Williard's claims; she determined to retreat; then a bold impulse to fol- low up her plot caused her to advance to the door and open it. The man on the bench moved uneasily, a spasm A FATEFUL SECRET. 23 of pain crossed his face, his eyes half opened, and he murmured some unintelligible words. " Father! " She had entered the room. With assumed tenderness of manner Blanche Vansant glided to the side of the dying man, and flinging herself upon her knees, her hand caressed his aged head. A mingled cry of pain and joy gurgled in the man's throat. His trembling fingers caught her hand, his blurred eyesight strove to read the face bent so closely to his own. " Oh, it cannot be; at last, at last! " he cried brokenly. " My little Myrtle, my darling child, who suffers with me for a deadly wrong. He kept his word, the stranger, and sent you hither." "He did, he told me all." Blanche Vansant paused. Blake, with feverish delight, had taken from her hand the locket and chain she still retained in her grasp. " The old memento, the old keepsake, "he gasped out, pressing his lips to the well-worn relic. " The picture of myself and your mother, and the letter which certifies our marriage and your birth. Oh, my darling, you have kept this all these years." The excitement seemed suddenly to prostrate him. He fell back panting for breath, while the woman, watching him with basilisk glance, awaited the op- portunity to speak of his secret " Listen," he said, finally. " For ten long years I have been the inmate of a close prison, the victim of the most cruel conspiracy a human being ever suffered. I was robbed of a fortune rightfully mine, rightfully your own. The man who robbed me, the man who saw me suffer, an innocent man, must be hunted down must make restitution must suffer as I have done! Justice! I shall not live to see it, but you, Myrtle these papers, they tell all, the name of the miscreant who revels in my wealth. 24 A FATEFUL SECRET. Take them, for my strength is failing me My med- icine! It will revive me temporarily; and move the light so I can see your dear face more perfectly with my dyino- eyes, to tell you of the fortune secreted " Blanche Vansant seized the coveted documents that John Blake had tendered her. She hesitated at his last request. She dared not risk the chance of his seeing her face more closely. Was it accident or design? As she moved back her hand swept the precious bottle of medicine to the floor. The phial was shattered, the liquid lost. John Blake uttered a despairing cry. She saw that he was dying. She read it in his ineffectual attempts to tell her more. His fingers tightened on her hand, a convulsive tremor shook his frame. She tore her hand with a shudder from the death-clasp .with a half-affrighted cry, for the white face had grown still, the apparent rigidity of death held the attenuated form silent as that of a statue. " Dead!" she gasped out; " but I have succeeded. The papers will tell all. It is a boast, an idle story, or, merciful heavens! they have not lied." She could not resist the temptation, even in the presence of death, to glance at the documents she possessed. As her keen glance scanned the first paper, a wild, frightened light shone in her quiver- ing eyes. " The name of the man who holds John Blake's fortune," she whispered, hoarsely. " He spoke the truth. A fortune is mine, a power given me by John Blake's secret, that will compel Percy Grey to suffer poverty and disgrace or wed me." She tore from the hut as if pursued, appalled at the mighty power of the secret she had discovered. " Two out of the way," cried Blanche Vansant, in wild excitement and triumph; " and Myrtle Blake THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. 2 driven from home and lost. The Blake secret is mine alone, to force old Ansel Grey to my will, to win the name and fortune of the man I love, Percy Grey." CHAPTER III. THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. POOR, motherless Cinderella! When the first realization of her orphaned condi- tion broke with full force over the crushed heart of the persecuted child of destiny, it seemed as if all hope and brightness had been rent from her young life. She forgot the cruel plots of Bryce Williard, her own destitute position; even the kindly, earnest friendship of Percy Grey. Sobbing away her grief in the arms of her kind-hearted neighbor, the young man left her to her sorrow, while he directed the arrangements for her future comfort, and the inter- ment of her dead mother. Amid the misery about him, Percy Grey's heart warmed to sympathy for the unfortunate tenantry. More than one poor soul went to bed that night richer from the generosity of the landlord's nephew, and when he finally left the house, the rooms for- merly occupied by Mrs. Blake were rehabilitated and cheerful, and the woman who had befriended Myrtle was furnished with the means to provide for the comfort of the bereaved girl. Through that long, bitter night of sorrow, and the succeeding day of heart-rending separation from the inanimate clay of her mother, there crept, de- spite herself, into the young girl's heart, a new, reliant calm, that soothed her distracted soul. At the darkest hour an angel of comfort had visited her. The tears that fell over the frozen grave were grateful, as well as grief-born, for she had seen her 2.6 THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. mother rescued from a pauper's oblivion, and she turned back to life with a ray of light illuminating its black expanse the friendship of a man with a heart and a soul. It was the afternoon of the day succeeding the funeral. Myrtle Blake sat thinking over the crowd- ing events of the past few days with tearful, medi- tating eyes. It seemed as if a crisis in life had come and passed, leaving a golden sorrow that was haunting, but also a calm, reliant hope for the fu.ture. Her heart beat faster, her eyes grew expressive, as a light footstep sounded in the hall without, and then a slight tremor of confusion shook the dainty form, so graceful in its plain black garments of mourning. The door opened as she answered the light knock with an invitation to enter. Her visitor was Percy Grey. His face was serious but encouraging, his manner earnestly respectful yet interested. He fixed his clear, honest eyes on her beautiful face steadfastly as he took the chair she proffered him. - A thought of all he had been to her during her bereavement, the silent eloquence of his sympathy, drove Myrtle to an involuntary impulse. Her bright eyes filled with tears, her quivering voice in- coherently sobbed out her gratitude. " You must not speak of that, Miss Blake," Percy Grey said, quickly. " Let us talk of the future, for your life is too hopeful and young to be blighted by an early sorrow." She told him of her position at Grasp & Throttle's, a flush of pleasure even crossing her face as she an- nounced that she could find immediate employment. Percy Grey shook 'iis head seriously. " You must never go back there, " he said. " The Cinderella of the past must emerge to something better than the treadmill slavery circumstances force so many poor girls to adopt. You are edu- 27 cated, refined, and intelligent. There are oppor- tunities open for better compensation and more elevating occupation than wearing your life away at that dark factory." Myrtle's ingenuous mind awakened to quick in- terest at his suggestion. She listened with delight to his proffer to interest some friend in securing her a position, and her poor face had become positively cheerful when he arose to leave her. " I will call or send you some word in a day or two," said Percy Grey as he bade farewell. " I am compelled to leave the city shortly, but will not be gone long. You shall not suffer for a friend, and you shall be protected from such scoundrels as Bryce Williard, while I am near, Miss Blake." Myrtle thrilled to a wild tremor of emotion as he pressed her hand earnestly, as his eyes meeting her own told that the sympathy his heart had ex- perienced was part of an emotion more lasting than silent pity. The light seemed to go with him, but with a little fluttering sigh she resumed her solitary meditation, the lingering memory of his presence making her blush at her own thoughts. "So kind, so noble," she whispered to herself with quivering pulses. " Will he really come again, or is his interest in me only the pity of an honest, sympathetic man for a poor girl in distress? " She could not deceive her heart with grateful tears. All through that day and the one ensuing, the hours seemed leaden-winged as they disappoint- edly passed by. Poor, confiding Cinderella, she little dreamed that at that very moment dark plots of evil were forming about her devoted life, that the absence of Percy Grey was occasioned by the deft suggestion of Blanche Vansant to his uncle to send him away on business. Myrtle was apprehensive when her neighbors told her of a surreptitious visit of Bryce Williard to the 28 THE FALCON AND THE DOVfi house that morning. He had made inquiries of some of them regarding the occurrences since his being deposed as agent, but he had not ventured to intrude upon Myrtle, and she believed he would not dare again to molest her while she was protected by her manly rescuer, Percy Grey. It was late in the afternoon as she was returning from an errand in the neighborhood that a lady whom she did not know stopped her and addressed her: " You are Miss Blake? " she asked. Myrtle nodded assentingly, and looked wonder- ingly at the strange woman, who tendered her a folded note. " A note for me," murmured Myrtle, in some surprise. " It must be from the factory." A tell-tale flush came into her face as she opened the letter. Her first act was to look at the signa- ture. " From Percy Grey," she murmured, as she regarded the clear, business-like handwriting. " What can he have to write to me? " The note was brief and ran: " MiSS BLAKE If you will call with the bearer upon my friend, Miss Helen Delroy, this afternoon or evening, she will be able to give you some pleas- ant and lucrative employment." The writer named the home of the lady referred to a residence street near the southern avenues of the city. Myrtle had never seen Percy Grey's handwriting, but not for a moment did she doubt the genuineness of the note She was in a flutter of delightful anticipation as she murmured joyfully: " I shall find employment the means of repay- ing Mr Grey for his kindness, " A certain awe possessed the timid, shrinking soul of Myrtle Blake, as the bearer of the note led her THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. 29 through the miserable neighborhood, and, reaching the house mentioned in the note, left her side. It was a stately marble-front edifice, closely shut- tered. She rang the door-bell with a trembling hand, and simultaneously murmured the name of Mrs. Delroy, as a colored servant admitted her. The chandeliers were lit as she was shown into an apartment elegantly furnished. A dark, flash- ing beauty passed through the room, and went into the second salon, whence the sound of animated conversation issued. She arose with no little trepidation as a stout, portly woman, jewel-bedecked and flashily dressed, entered the parlor. There was a false smile beneath the deep rouge and powder, that somehow or other chilled the innocent Myrtle. " You are Miss Myrtle Blake? " murmured the woman in smooth, oily tones. " I would know you from Mr. Grey's description. Is he not kind and liberal, and willing to be more kind and liberal, my dear, if you will come under my charge? " The serpent-like eyes studied Myrtle's face closely, as the latter was silent. She could not but feel a vague terror at this woman's presence; she could not repress a violent start as she heard hilarious laughter and the clinking of glasses from the cur- tained end of the large parlor, and as her eyes wandered thither, she saw seated around a table a company of men and women, the former smoking, the latter dressed in a manner that alarmed her natural modesty. " The employment you have for me, madam," she murmured finally. " Will you tell me what it is? I am a fair writer." " Bless me, child, you won't find fault with the work. You are made for a butterfly life, and you shall not want for fine dresses and jewels, and gay company. Come to my room and we will see if 30 THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. we cannot change that somber attire for something more attractive." There was no mistaking this woman's business. In the expressive smile, in the indifferent glance toward the gay company in the next apartment, Myrtle Blake, inexperienced as she was, realized that which filled her with terror. " Madam!" she cried, arising suddenly to her feet, " you surely do not mean that Mr. Grey has directed you to offer me a place in your household under any circumstances? " " As his protege under my charge; exactly, my dear. He fancies your pretty face, and does not intend that your dainty fingers shall be soiled by work." A white horror came into Myrtle Blake's features. That this was but a gilded temptation placed in her way, she could not but know, and the awful knowl- edge that to this Percy Grey's sympathy had led her, held her rooted to the spot. " He sent that note he wished me to come to this to this place," she gasped; " oh, heavens, it cannot be." She started toward the door as she spoke. The woman's face grew dark; she intercepted her visi- tor with a tight clasp of her fat, jeweled hand. " You little fool!" she hissed; " will you spoil the chance of a life by being prudish? Who suggests wrong? not he, not I. Is the place not fine and comfortable enough for you? " " Release me, woman; how dare you keep me in this place? " She tore herself from the woman's grasp with a wild scream of terror, and dashed toward the hall. The woman's eyes grew crafty as she started after her. She had deftly removed a diamond circlet from her finger. Unnoticed by Myrtle, she pressed THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. 31 close to her side and slipped the ring into the pocket of the girl's dress. Myrtle tore open the inside door and gained the vestibule. At that moment the woman's hand grasped her arm. " You had better come back," she hissed in her ear. " Here is comfort, luxury, a wealthy lover; outside, poverty, struggle and temptation to the last. Be warned." " Let me go! Oh, God, is all the world false and bad? " Myrtle Blake reeled down the marble steps with a heart too overwhelmed for utterance. She drew back as a cry reached her ears. " Officer, arrest that girl; she has robbed me." She looked up quickly. As if by design, a uniformed policeman stood at the curb, and turned to hasten toward and intercept her as the woman cried out her false accusation. For a moment Myrtle Blake reeled where she stood. She felt the officer's hand seize her arm. She heard vaguely the woman demand that she should be searched; that she had been robbed by the girl when trying to befriend her; and then, as the policeman drew a diamond circlet from her pocket, Myrtle cried out wildly: " It is false, it is false! this is all some cruel plot to drive me into the power of this woman and her friends." " You come along with me." The officer tore her clinging hand from the gilded railing with brutal strength, unheeding her words and cries. A frantic terror possessed his fair pris- oner, as she realized the disgrace and trouble that had befallen her. Then she looked up quickly and turned with a wild, hopeful cry, when a voice said peremptorily: "You must not arrest that girl." 32 THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. " At any other time she would have shrank from the man who uttered those words. Amid the awful terror of her helplessness and agony she clasped her hands frantically and cried to him eagerly. " Oh, Mr. Williard, you know I would not steal. You know there is some terrible mistake in all this ! " It was Bryce Williard who had appeared, and who exchanged a significant look with the woman on the steps and then turned to the officer. " Who are you? What business is this of yours? " demanded the policeman. " I am acquainted with this young lady and I know her to be an honest working-girl. Miss Blake," he whispered, coming nearer to her, " if you can forget the past wrong I have done you, believe me I will try and befriend you in your present trouble." His false face but poorly concealed its scheming craftiness, but to Mrytle he seemed an enemy sud- denly transformed into a friend, regretful for his past. With anxious eyes she saw him approach the woman and converse with her. She read not the deft dissimulation in his actions and occasional excited words, but sobbed hopefully, as he came to where she stood and said to the officer: " I have prevailed on the lady to compromise. You are to take the ring to her and allow this young lady to depart. There has been a mistake." He slipped a bill into the policeman's hand as the latter was going up the steps with the ring. Quite a little throng had gathered about the steps. "I will lead you from this annoying throng, Miss Blake," he said, with a well-assumed respectful manner. "Ah, there is a carriage. It is the only way to evade contact with this gaping, curious crowd." Myrtle shrank back as her companion drew THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. J3 towards a vehicle at the curb. The danger of arrest departed, she remembered all the past cruelty of this man, yet a sense of obligation for what she deemed his fortunate interference in her behalf held her silent. He was intensely respectful as he gave an order to the cabman and leaned towards her. " Miss Blake," he said, " you owe me nothing but aversion and dislike, for I have acted very cruelly to you. I have repented my actions and ask your forgiveness. My heart is stirred to the keenest sympathy for your trouble. Will you believe me to be a friend? " She did not reply. A choking sob rent the poor tortured lips as Myrtle's mind grew confused over all that had occurred and confessed to an utter in- ability to distinguish friend from foe. " You believe Percy Grey the soul of honor," went on the wily schemer. " If I mistake not, the woman we just left is a friend of his; you are not safe even at your own home. If you will trust me as a friend, let me take you to a place where you shall have security and rest until you can decide what to do. I ask only this confidence to atone for all the trouble and misery I so cruelly imposed upon you." The accents of his voice fairly trembled with well- affected sincerity, his past evil was obscured amid the torturing agony in Myrtle's mind of the plot she had escaped the plot which to all seeming Percy Grey had laid to entrap her. The sinister eyes watching her keenly allowed her to give way to her grief, and when the carriage stopped at the lighted entrance at what seemed to be a small hotel, Wil- liard noted with satisfaction that she allowed him to lead her unquestioningly into the place. " Time to think, time to realize all this," moaned Myrtle, brokenly. Desperate 3, 34 THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. " Your wishes shall be respected," murmured the false friend, as he led the way up a carpeted stair- case. " The landlady here is a friend of mine. Ah! Mrs. Warden, I wish a room for this young lady." He had addressed a woman standing in the door- way of a parlor, and their eyes exchanged a signifi- cant look as he did so. The woman came forward, and, preceding them, paused before a door, unlocked it, and bade Myrtle enter the apartment. " You have been very kind to me," she sobbed to Williard, who stood at the door. " O, mother! mother! " broke unrestrainedly from her lips, as she flung herself into a chair, " would that I had died with you ere I came to know all this agony and disgrace." " You will be comfortable and undisturbed here, my dear," murmured the woman, as she lit a lamp, and proceeded to leave the room. As she closed the door after her, Myrtle started suddenly with a sense of loneliness. It grew to a quick awakened terror as she heard the voice of Bryce Williard in the hall without. " Lock the door and keep the key." " Ah, you wish to hold her here a prisoner?" " Without her knowing it, until I can remove her somewhere else. Yes, I will register regularly, so as to have no trouble. Here, watch the girl closely until I return." There was a jingling of silver. Myrtle Blake started to her feet, white as marble. He is deceiving me, "she cried. " It is all a lie; all a plot. Merciful father, where is the true? where is the false? " The man who had believed his victim to be ab- sorbed in her grief, as he so unguardedly made his bargain with the landlady, had descended to the ground floor. The place was a small hotel, but its THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. 35 careless character was betokened by the repulsive face of the landlord behind the office desk. He nodded familiarly to Williard and handed him a pen, pushing the blotted, ragged register before him. " I don't intend to stay long," remarked Williard. " By heavens, the game is up." He started wildly as he happened to glance to- ward the street. Standing just outside the door, conversing with the driver of the vehicle which had brought Williard and Myrtle Blake to the hotel, was a man whom the former recognized with gen- uine dismay. It was Percy Grey. The street-lamp showed a face so pale and portentious, a pair of eyes so aflame with anxiety and rage, that at first Williard seemed about to show his true craven nature, and turn to fly. Then, some subtle diabolism giving boldness to his villainous soul, he turned to the reg- ister and scratched upon it: " Bryce Williard and lady." The landlord placed the number of the room on the line with the name as Percy reached the desk and with a sweep of his hand turned Bryce Williard face to face with himself. "You scoundrel! " he cried, white to the lips, " infamous plotter and villain, I have traced you down. Where is Myrtle Blake? Where is the girl you have decoyed from her home by means of a forged letter in my name? " Bryce Williard slipped from his grasp and whipped a chair between them. He feared violence from this man, but a sense of triumph, a deep hatred for his foe, emboldened him to torture him when the opportunity offered. " Who are you that insults me in the pursuance of my business? " he demanded. " What do I know of your forged letters? " 36 THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. " What do you know? " trembled on Grey's ex- cited lips. " Be careful! Oh! you fiend, you shall suffer for this! " His eyes had fallen to the hotel register, his dazed vision rested on the infamous record of Bryce Williard's villainy. He could scarcely control him- self. Maddened with wild rage, he endeavored to seize the miscreant before him. "Be careful of yourself," ground out Williard. " I am no longer your hireling. I am among friends. What is it to me that you fume and fret because I have won your lady-love from you by fair or foul means? She came here willingly; she will become my wife before another day. " " You lie! " rang from Grey's lips. " Bryce Wil- liard, you have gone too far in luring this innocent girl from her home. If what you say is true if she has come here willingly, heaven help me; but if your evil plots have injured one hair of her dear head, I will kill you." He turned quickly; with abound he reached the door-way. He was up the stairs ere the landlord or Williard could prevent him. He dashed the landlady aside in the hall above, glancing wildly at the different rooms until he came to the one num- bered on the hotel register opposite Bryce Wil- lard's name. His hand beat a wild, echoing tattoo on the door; his voice trembling with suspenseful agony, he called out: " Cinderella! Cinderella! In heaven's name, tell me, are you there?" There was no reply. He turned the knob; the door was locked. A spasm of excitement and pain crossed the noble face of Percy Grey. He raised his powerful arm. The door went flying back with a crash. On the table the lamp flickered in the cold night FATE! 37 breeze. The room was tenantless. He glanced wildly about, and then sprang to the open window. Beneath, on the white fallen snow, only the traces of irregular footsteps showed. Pendant from the window was a shawl, reaching nearly to the ground, telling how the inmate of that apartment had escaped. A wild cry, like a sob of frantic relief, broke from Percy Grey. He caught up the shawl he recognized as belong- ing to the woman he loved and pressed it to his lips fervently. " Thank God! " he cried; " she is innocent. " CHAPTER IV. FATE! INNOCENT! Like a pure soul driven to sudden horror by the presence of a blight, Myrtle Blake had realized her peril after hearing the portentious words of Bryce Williard outside the door of the room in which she was imprisoned. Even amid the deep emotion of a growing manly love Percy Grey could not com- prehend how her very innocence and inexperience had driven her to fall a prey into the hands of her cruel enemies. She had not waited to think ; she only wished to escape. Even the wild, sudden thought that the man she loved had been maligned to her, that all the events of the hour were part of a cunningly- devised plot of Bryce Williard's, was forgotten for the time being, as she tried the door, and then fled to the window. She did not hesitate as she grew dizzy at gazing down at the snow-covered ground, She took her 38 FATE! shawl from her shoulders, secured it to a curtain fixture, and, seizing it with trembling hands, de- scended its length. A mighty inspiration of relief swept her lips as she fell to the ground. Then, with an apprehen- sive glance around her, she sped across the snow to the street, and only paused, panting and breath- less, when she had put a dozen squares between herself and the possibility of pursuit. The exercise had flushed her face to fever heat. She stopped in an embrasure of a large building to rest, but, a moment later, arose again, chilled through, and shivering at the bitter cold. " I will hasten home," she decided. " Oh, there must be some mistake. Percy Grey never wrote that letter. It is all the work of that villain Wil- liard." She grew tearful, however, as, after wandering about aimlessly for some time, she realized that she was unable to locate the Grey tenements, even as to direction. Twice she was on the point of ask- ing passing pedestrians about its location, but the bold, staring glances of the men she met abashed her, and she wearily trod on through a network of streets and avenues, at last uttering a sigh of hope and relief. An officer stood under a lamp-post, and she timidly approached him. " I have lost my way," she said, hesitatingly. " Would you direct me, if you please?" The policeman eyed her keenly. " What street? " he demanded gruffly. She named the thoroughfare on which the tene- ment houses were located. It was not a favored locality, and evidently in- creased the suspicions of the policeman of late pedestrians. "Go directly south," he said briefly, "and go FATE! 39 quickly. Young girls alone at this hour is against rules, and you'll get in trouble if you don't make a bee-line for home." She hurried her steps at his ominous words, traveling the direction he gave her. For several squares she proceeded quietly and unmolested. She recoiled as a man suddenly turning a corner caught sight of her and started toward her. " Hold on, my dear," he cried out in a half maud- lin tone, as she uttered a little scream of alarm. " You .must want company this lonely night. " Myrtle evaded his grasp, and in her excitement ran down the side street. It was a fine residence thoroughfare, but deserted of all pedestrians. She grew wildly terrified as she looked back. The man was following her. Her rapid walk broke into a run as she heard him call out to her. He was gaining upon her and laughing gleefully as if enjoying the sport of pur- suit. A long row of stone-front edifices termin- ated in a large mansion with extensive grounds. Myrtle, almost fainting with dread and exhaustion, leaned on the iron fence surrounding it for support. " You're too coy, my pretty one," hiccoughed the unwelcome voice almost at her elbow, and Myrtle started with a scream of terror to evade him again. " Was there no protection from insult and perse- cution? " Not a policeman was in sight as she turned the corner. She could not run much further, the man was hastening after her. Utterly terrified tjie girl turned towards the lighted front of the marble mansion. Then she ran up the steps shriek- ing, slipped on the topmost step and fell heavily. The man seemed bent on keeping up his perse- cution, but as a carriage was coming down the street, and he was somewhat afraid of getting in trouble, he refrained from following her. As the 40 FATE! vehicle drove almost to the curb, he turned the cor- ner and abandoned his cowardly pursuit. Myrtle Blake, in falling, had struck the door of the mansion with her foot just as a noise sounded from the interior of the corridor. Evidently her shriek and the fall had attracted considerable atten- tion, for the door was suddenly opened. A man, white-haired and bent with age, peered out curi- ously. Then he swung the door wide open and stared in mute bewilderment at the startling pic- ture presented to his vision. Insensible upon the steps, her beautiful golden hair sweeping the pure white snow, lay Myrtle Blake. The old man cast a wondering look at the prostrate figure, then he muttered: " A woman fainted in the snow. Here, John, Maggie, some of you come here." He had stepped half within the doorway and called loudly for help. A man came hurriedly down the hall. " You called, Mr. Grey? " Mr. Grey! What fatality had led that poor, per- secuted child to the door of this man, who held the strands of all her stormy destiny the uncle of the man she loved? " Yes. Call some of the other servants. A woman's fainted outside." For two minutes confusion and bustle reigned in the vestibule and hall. Two servants aided the first comer in lifting the inanimate girl into the corridor, laying her on a sofa. Ansel Grey stood looking curiously down at the helpless f >rm. He started as the pale, beautiful face was revealed, and he became deadly pale as the young girl's eyes opened. "That face those eyes! "he gasped incoher- ently. " Oh, it is some fancied resemblance. See, FATE ! 41 she is recovering. Ask her her name. Do you hear me? " The housekeeper knelt beside the sofa. " You are getting better, dear," she murmured, sympathetically, to the bewildered Myrtle. " How came you here? What is your name? " " My name is Myrtle Blake." The answer came slowly, dreamily, as if the speaker was sinking to a trance-like apathy to all external objects, dazed by the genial warmth and comfort of the elegant mansion. Such a cry issued from Ansel Grey's lips, as he fell back at hearing that name, that the housekeeper stared at him in the deepest amazement and con- cern. " Myrtle Blake! " he gasped out, clutching at his throat for breath. " Merciful God! it is fate; it has come at last his child. What brought John Blake's daughter to my roof? " " Mr. Grey, what has happened? You are ill, you " A new voice spoke with feigned solicitude. Blanche Vansant, descending the stairs in silken robes, crowded to the side of the excited man. He swept her aside angrily, as her siren eyes rested with awed amazement upon the object of his own emotion. " Out with her! " broke in imperative rage-filled tones from the old man's lips. " Do you hear me, dolts, to stand there and stare at me as if you were stones? Turn her out, I say, into the street, the hospital, the poor-house. She is some pauper, some impostor, some hardened vagrant!" The servants stared at him as if they believed him suddenly bereft of his senses. One of them stooped to lift the lifeless form, to carry his order into execu- tion. "Stopl" 42 FATE! He turned as a quick voice spoke, as the occu- pant of the carriage that had just driven up to the mansion crossed the threshold of the open door- way. It was Percy Grey, pale and excited. He eyed the throng questioningly. " What does this mean, Uncle?" "A vagrant, some impostor trying to appeal to our sympathies." " Oh, thank heaven, it is she! Cinderella, Cin- derella, at last I have found you." To the utter consternation of the servants, filling Ansel Grey with the wildest amazement, Percy Grey sprang suddenly forward. He caught the form of Myrtle in his arms in a fond embrace; his eyes, bent down upon her, were filled with the ardent love of a noble soul. A half-suppressed cry, like the utterance of a baffled tiger, rent Blanche Vansant's lips, and she clung to the door for support. An awful light came into Ansel Grey's eyes. His face a void of white rage, his lips parted as if to utter some direful curse, he raved forth the cruel words: " Out with her, I say. Who is this woman, Percy this vagrant of whom you seem to know some- thing?" Percy Grey looked up with a face so calm that it awed the old man to silence. His hand caressed tenderly the golden head pillowed on his breast, as he said slowly: " She is no vagrant, no impostor. This poor per- secuted child is the woman I love. Order her from your roof this wild winter's night, Ansel Grey, and I go too! " PLOTTERS AT WORK. 43 CHAPTER V. PLOTTERS AT WORK. OLD Ansel Grey stood glaring at his nephew, transfixed, amazed, for some moments after Percy had made his astounding declaration. " You love this girl you know her you defy me," he gasped out incoherently. " Take her out of my sight, then," he ordered the servants with a frantic wave of his hand. " As to you, sir, I de- mand an explanation of all this! " " You shall know all," replied Percy, calmly. " When you learn how innocent and persecuted has been this poor child of poverty, you will not grudge her the shelter of your roof." He transferred the dazed, half-insensible Myrtle to the arms of the housekeeper as tenderly as though she had been his chosen bride. He murmured solicitous directions for her welfare, and then with a proud step turned toward the library, whither his uncle had started with unsteady gait and ashen countenance. The door closed upon them both, shutting out the curious gaze of the gossiping servants; shutting out, too, the dark beauty, who, with a sinking heart, had drawn within the shadow of an alcove. Blanche Vansant, her jewekd hands clinched, her eyes aflame, her face drawn in an expression of murderous hatred, was convulsed with pent-up emotions as they bore Myrtle Blake down the hall. " Under this roof, publicy claimed by Percy Grey as the woman he loved," broke passionately from the trembling lips. " Oh, it is too much for me to bear. Has Williard played me false; has he dared to disobey and defy me? No, no; it is fate, but that fate I will battle, for I swear Myrtle Blake shall not gain the coveted prize of love and fortune," 44 PLOTTERS AT WORK. She glanced searchingly about her; then, stealthily crossing the hall, she glided through an open door- way and groped her way in the darkness across the smoking alcove behind the library. A pair of heavy curtains separated the two apartments, and she moved toward them, parting them slightly, preparing to listen and then to act. A triumphant gleam came into the dark, express- ive eyes as Blanche Vansant's mind pronounced those two little words, as she realized that in her possession were certain documents wrested from the dying and deluded John Blake, which would explode a mine under the feet of Ansel Grey, and cause him to cower and cringe under the lash of her terrible power. It was Ansel Grey, who, seated at the library table, regarded his nephew with a look that told of illy-repressed rage and excitement. The aged face was drawn and white; the restless hands trembled fitfully. To this old man the one tie of affection and interest in all the world was the brave, reliant young man who now faced him with silent determin- ation. " Who is that girl? Why do you befriend her? " came in a gasping tone from Ansel Grey's lips. The young man's eyes swept his uncle's face silently. " I have told you why," he replied quietly. " Let me ask you a question. Why do you seek to drive her from your door? " Ansel Grey winced at the steady gaze of the other, but evaded a direct reply. " As I would any other person I believed to be an impostor or a homeless vagrant," he stammered. " Percy ! Percy! " he continued, with sudden emotion, " can you not see that I am suffering intensely? " PLOTTERS AT WORK. 45 Percy Grey advanced to where his uncle sat and placed a tender hand upon his shoulder. " Uncle, "he said with intense feeling, " there need be no secrets between us. I have told you the entire truth. I love this girl. All this night, having returned from my journey, I have been tracing her down, to rescue her from the hands of a villain, your former agent, Bryce Williard. She is pure and innocent as a flower, a poor orphaned child, whose love is to be prized above all the gaudy pretensions of society and wealth the only woman I ever met whose heart responded to mine. I have spoken, and I say it again, turn this innocent home- less girl from your door and I go, too. " " He does not know; he does not suspect," whis- pered Ansel Grey. " He is determined and willful. But this could never be this girl must be driven hence at all hazards." He controlled all expressions of outward emotion with a powerful effort. He sank back in his chair and shaded his hands. " The old story," he sighed, " of unequal love; of an old man's bitter disappointment in one he counted on so much. No, no, Percy; nothing more now. In the morning we will discuss this wild fancy of yours, that can never be anything but a fancy." The words were on Percy's lips to gainsay him, but he restrained himself as he observed how his uncle suffered from the excitement of the hour. He bade him a respectful good-night, and the next moment the door opened and closed after him. If he could have seen his uncle a moment later, he would been wildly amazed he would have realized that his suspicions as to something deeper in his uncle's frantic desire to drive this poor child from his roof were no vague trifles. 46 PLOTTERS AT WORK. An invalid's sufferings had been his for long, weary months, yet he seemed to forget all his weakness as he sprang excitedly to his feet. Pacing the library floor like a madman, his eyes burned with a lurid, haunted light; his lips framed broken ejaculations of agitated emotion as he gave way to his feelings. "After all these years, "his bloodless lips quavered. " Oh, I had thought John Blake and his fatal secret buried from human knowledge forever. It shall not be. I have guarded my treasures too long to lose them. I shrink from the shadow of disgrace. Myrtle Blake his daughter! Is it some hidden plot, or a terrible retribution of fate?" He became more quiet as into his eyes crept the old sordid light the crafty suspicious expression so natural to him. " Percy loves her; he would wed that girl. Even if she never suspected the truth, the daily reproach of her face would kill me. No, no. Come, Ansel Grey, you have carried your scheme so far, you must not weaken now. This girl has crossed my path she must be driven hence. Those two must be separated. Percy Grey shall not carry out his wild boyish fancy, even if crime prevents its con- summation. My secret, the secret of John Blake that dreadful past is it still a secret, or has destiny unearthed its influence after all these years? Woman, what does this mean? " He had started to his feet wildly. The curtains parting suddenly, Blanche Vansant stepped into view. There was a change in the beautiful siren's face he could not but discern. A glance told his quick mind that this woman's intrusion meant something unusual; behind the set lips and stern eyes was a motive that startled him. PLOTTERS AT WORK. 47 But he frowned darkly, directing a cold, repel- lant glance upon her, as he said, angrily: " What does this intrusion mean? " The woman never took her eyes from his face. She glided to a chair, drew it to the desk, leaned her jeweled hand upon it, and said, in low, ominous tones: " It means that your intention of disposing with my services as private secretary must he rescinded. It means that I have come to echo your sentiments Percy Grey must never wed Myrtle Blake. She must indeed be driven from your roof, and at once." In the conscious possession of a power that would make this old man tremble, Blanche Vansant never quailed at the rage-filled, astonished look he bestowed upon her. " Are you mad? " he cried, wildly. " Woman, you forget your position in this house, that you dare to presume on what you have seen and overheard, to intrude your unwelcome presence as a confidant and equal." A light, scornful laugh issued from the woman's lips. "Ansel Grey," she said, slowly, impressively, " we will not deal in mystery. The hour has come when you will need a confidant, when disgrace and poverty stare you in the face, unless that confidant can help you hide the past, which tortures your mind even now." Her words had produced the desired effect. Ansel Grey's face fell. A wild alarm came into the stricken eyes. He groaned in vague apprehen- sion and bewilderment, but he did not reply. " You will learn to bless the day I crossed your path," went on Blanche Vansant, in low, confiding tones. " Look, Ansel Grey, your eyes are not so dim, your memory so far gone, that you will not 48 PLOTTERS AT WORK. recognize the handwriting on this precious docu- ment." She had suddenly drawn from her pocket a scroll of paper. Her hand deftly spread it before him, only for a moment. Then, as if fearing that he might violently wrench it from her possession, she withdrew it, and secreted it again. The old man's eyes grew fixed and glassy as they stared at the bold, peculiar handwriting she had ex- hibited. His face grew ashen, his trembling lips parted to gasp out: " Merciful Heaven! John Blake's handwriting. Woman, woman, torture me no longer. What do you know; what is the price of your silence? " A triumphant flash came into the dark face. "I know all," replied Blanche Vansant, "and might rob you of every dollar of your ill-gotten wealth, and send you to prison. The price of my silence? Your friendship, your aid in carrying out the dearest wish of my heart the separation of Percy Grey and Myrtle Blake, the removal of the latter from our path." He had expected direful menace, ruin complete. His eyes grew hopeful, his face resumed its wonted craftiness, he breathed a sigh of relief. " Then you alone " he began. " Know your secret. John Blake is dead. In all the wide world, Myrtle Blake, all unconscious of the wrong you did her father, is friendless, save for the interest of the man you call nephew, Ansel Grey. I love that nephew. For your fortune I care not; but he shall make me his wife. Choose, in this hour of peril. Award me your promise to meet my wishes regarding him, and the secret, dead for ten years, shall lie undisturbed amid its ob- livion." She was reckless in her open avowal of her love for his nephew, as she realized the power she held PLOTTERS AT WORK. 49 over him. As he glanced at her passionate face, as he remarked her queenly grace and beauty, his eyes told that, whatever the social distinction he craved for his nephew and heir, he believed it would be safely guarded by this selfish, but ambitious, woman. His head bent low in earnest attention, as slowly, concisely, in low, impressive tones, she told him as much as she desired to impart of her knowledge of John Blake's secret. " In my hands, your secret is safe, as long as you work with me, "she said, finally; " but Myrtle Blake, if living, is a menace to your millions. She must be driven hence. " She had arisen to her feet, her lips set, her eyes gleaming dangerously, as if she had pronounced the doom of the victim of their mutual hatred. The old man read all the cruelty and determination of a fiend in her dark face. His voice was portentious as he demanded: " But how? Do you realize the willful mind of my nephew? He would sacrifice all for the sake of this girl. I dare not cross him now." " Then leave it all to me. Ansel Grey, the com- pact is made. Beware, when I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, that you do not withhold from me the execution of yours." " Do not fear," replied Grey, eagerly. " Separate these two. Drive Myrtle Blake into an oblivion where she can never learn my treasured secret. Then I will do as you wish. I swear it! " Blanche Vansant turned from the apartment with a confident triumphant face. She proceeded straight to her own apartment, and, locking the door, sat down at the window and was plunged in deep, somber reverie for over an hour. She arose finally. Taking from her dress the two documents given her by the dying John Blake, Desperate 4. 5O PLOTTERS AT WORK. she selected the smaller of the two. Her dark eyes flashed ominously as she perused its contents. Then, secreting it in her hand, she stepped into the hall outside and listened. The house was silent, the lights turned low. She descended the stairs, noiselessly traversed the lower corridor, and paused at last before an open door. It was the housekeeper's sleeping apartment. The heavy regular breathing that broke upon the listener's hearing told that it's occupant was asleep. She glided past the door and peered into an ad- joining apartment. A lamp half turned down burned on a little stand. It showed a snowy cot, upon the pillow of which in infant-like slumber rested the golden head of Myrtle Blake. The dark beauty stole silently into the room, and paused to glance down at her sleeping rival. Even amid her dreams a smile of peace rested on the beautiful face of Myrtle Blake. Blanche Van- sant's "eyes devoured her with hate-filled glance, the jeweled fingers worked nervously, as if with the thought of some murderous design. Then, recalled to herself, she leaned over and placed on the couch two objects. They were the locket and chain Bryce Williard had given her, and one of the documents she had received from John Blake at the old hut by the river. She bestowed a last, jealous look at the sleeping Cinderella, a look turn- ing to intense triumph, as she stepped from the apartment, her false, satisfied lips murmuring in low, hissing tones " With the morning she will be gone ; with the morning she will read that which will cause her to fly from Percy Grey and the roof that now shelters her, as though he were her deadliest enemy! " DECOYED. 51 CHAPTER VI. DECOYED. A SIGH like the fluttering cadence of a nestling bird broke the silence of the apartment in which Myrtle Blake slumbered, as the dark plotter, Blanche Vansant, left it. With a dazed, wondering face, and eyes per- plexedly studying the dimly-illuminated surround- ings, Cinderella awoke at last. "Where am I?" She checked the query to an inaudible murmur, as the light dawned upon her mind, and she real- ized fully what had transpired. Again that shud- dering scene of the hotel, her mad flight after- ' wards, drove the color from her fair cheek ; but her breath came rapturously and fast, as she recalled the episode of the mansion-corridor, the appear- ance of the man she loved, and the kindly services of the aged housekeeper. Such an emotion of security lulled her to a peaceful indifference to all save rest, that, thrilled with a belief that from first to last Percy Grey had been a true, honest friend, Myrtle Blake closed her eyes with a half happy smile of content. "What is this?" Her hand, carelessly sweeping the coverlet, had come in contact with a hard metallic object. It clasped, too, a paper. She sat bolt upright in bed and stared in bewildered amazement at them. " My necklace, "she breathed, wonderingly, " the precious memento of my father's love, lost that dark day of my darling mother's death. How came it here? What does it all mean? " She covered the little trinket with sorrowful tears and kisses, opened the locket and gazed ten- derly on the pictures it contained, at the little $2 DECOYED. scrap 01 paper oeneath the portrait of the father she dimly remembered. As yet her mind, overcome by all the startling episodes of the past week, was unable to suggest a solution of the mystery, or even grapple with it. A new surprise awaited her as she opened the folded paper she had found, that absorbed every sense or emotion save utter astonishment. " My father's handwriting," she gasped out, " the same as the locket contains. Oh, I cannot mistake. That peculiar slanting writing is his, and it is addressed to me, left for me here. What does this mystery mean?" She dropped the paper from her nerveless hands, and sank back among the pillows, overwhelmed by the suggestion of some new plot she could not com- prehend. Her face was startled, frightened, as she summoned courage to again glance at the docu- ment left by Blanche Vansant's mlse hands. From ivonder to terror her innocent eyes grew, turning from the pallor of alarm to the ashen hue of horror. Her quivering cheeks told of the most distracting emotion. She believed her senses were wandering, and all this the last stage of some lingering life-like dream. Before poor Cinderella could analyze the truth or falsity of friend or foe; before she could fully un- derstand all that had occurred since she had last left her humble home, new revelations blinded her to the past, and relentlessly drove her innocent heart to increased torture and mystifying suspense. " My child, my daughter, my little Myrtle, whom I have not seen for years," the letter ran, " if I die, this last behest of a wronged, persecuted man must reach you. For long, weary years I have been shut out from the sight of man, cruelly imprisoned in a living hell, at the instigation of a fiend I trusted and enriched; the man who robbed me of my fort- DECOYED. 53 une, who separated me from my family, who now revels in my wealth so hardly earned. Other pa- pers I shall send or bring to you will tell of the long debt of hate and justice we owe this human ghoul Ansel Grey." " Merciful heavens! that is the name of the man beneath whose roof I have found shelter the uncle of Percy Grey," gasped Myrtle, wildly. The letters seemed blurred and dancing as she pursued the reading of the letter. It continued: " This man may have some strong entrenchment behind a wall of influence and wealth, so that I can never drag him to the punishment he deserves. If this be true; if I do not live to bring him to justice, evade him, fly from him; put oceans between your- self and the miscreant, whose touch is blight, whose heart is poisonous as that of the slimy serpent; who would seek you out and destroy you, if he but knew you would learn the secret that would bring him to disgrace and penury. Living or dying, I adjure you, by all your love for me, to swear that to this man, and every friend and relative of his, you will have but hate and vengeance and retribu- tion in store; that the memory of all I have suf- fered will make you repay to them, if the opportu- nity ever comes, all the bitterness and suffering you can inflict. Swear it, pledge it; follow out the last wish of a man hopelessly despairing and wrecked in health, who has dragged himself, after ten years' suffering in a living tomb, to the distant city where Ansel Grey revels in the wealth he has stolen from your father, John Blake. " Blanche Vansant had not promised vainly when her treacherous eyes had flashed with triumph, and she had told Ansel Grey that she would drive Myrtle Blake from his home. A cry like the ut- terance of a wounded dove broke from Myrtle's bloodless lips. A haunting, agonized look came 54 DECOYED. into her distracted face. With feverish impulse she sprang from the couch and donned her gar- ments, and then, reeling where she stood, she sank to a chair, anxious and bewildered. Over and over again her mind went groping through the direful maze of doubt, uncertainty and terror. From first to last she recalled the experi- ence of the past week. Confused shadows again envelop the actions of Percy Grey. " True or false, loving or plotful," she wailed, " it must all end. Fate pursues me more relent- lessly than Bryce Williard. This man, whom I have learned to love, must never see my face again. Father, father, what mean these bitter words? Why have you burdened your poor child with but half a knowledge of a dark and terrible secret? " Her brain reeled as she strove to comprehend it all; her heart seemed breaking as she turned from the haven of rest she had found. Stern, unrelent- ing, a phantom destiny seemed to urge her to fly, as from a pestilence, in obedience to a dying father's mandate. She was flying from love and comfort, perhaps happiness. A blight seemed fallen over all the earth as she trod noiselessly the lower corridor, gained a door, unlocked it, and stepped out into the dark and cheerless night. In after moments the poor child of a stormy des- tiny could not remember how she spent those sor- rowful hours until the daylight. On and on through the snow, gathering her frail garments about her, the helpless Cinderella pursued her way blindly. Waiting for daylight; shrinking from the black- ness of the night and all its terrors! What a pic- ture for comparison, and a picture in which more than one honest child of labor has shared with bit- ter experience. DECOYED. 55 Once she determined to return to her home. The haunted, crowding memories of her father's letter caused her to hesitate. She dared not go there; she dared not seek a spot where both Percy Grey and Bryce Williard might trace her. No, no, she must lose herself in the great city, or out of it; must find forgetfulness of all the past and present, and live out the dreary existence, the dark influence of the nigh' portrayed to her. In the ashen gray of the early dawn she 'reached a familiar place. Weak and weary, she sank with a sigh of infinite relief away back in the dark shadow of the doorway of the great factory of Grasp & Throttle. She forgot all save weariness, until a rough, homely face looked curiously down upon her and spoke her name. c ' Bless me, if it ain't Cinderella. You come early, Miss." It was the engineer of the establishment who ad- dressed her, come to start up the engine fires and get the tread-mill ready for another day of labor. " I come early because I have no place else to go," choked out Myrtle, sobbingly. " You don't mean it. " The great pitying eyes of the engineer opened wide with manly sympathy, as he read the truth in her despairing ;ace. Then he gently took her arm, unlocked the door, led her to the engine-room, and drew a bench to the warmest corner of the place, cushioning it with his great coat. " You sit there," he said heartily, " and rest and warm yourself, and when the fire gets started we'll have some coffee and lunch, and you can see how good a cook my wife is. " The tears filled Cinderella's eyes as the man, with a homely deference to her humiliating poverty, pro- vided for her comfort. He forced her to partake of the lunch he had brought in his dinner-pail. He 56 DECOYED. purposely avoided her embarrassed explanation, busying himself at the machinery. The pleasant warmth, the wholesome food, seemed to infuse new life into the despairing girl. Life seemed less mis- erable as she sobbed down her griefs, and then with infinite weariness slumbered profoundly. The work-whistle, summoning the busy estab- lishment to life, aroused her, Her heart was too full for utterance as she grasped the hand of the kind-hearted engineer, and stole up the stairs. The foreman, giving directions for the day's work, stared coldly at her as she made application for her old position. Her heart sank, her head grew dizzy, as he announced in a gruff, business tone: " They have filled the place and there is no other vacancy. " It was a pittance at the best and long hours of drudgery, but it meant food and shelter. Cinder- ella's eyes were blinded with tears of disappoint- ment as she left the place, and not a ray of hope came within the succeeding hours of weary quest for employment. Every factory was full, every position seemed taken. She was footsore and mis- erable as she threaded the desolate streets, ex- hausted and utterly discouraged. She had ceased to notice the streets or passers-by, and did not even start as a hand touched her arm, as a voice spoke her name. A faint smile of recognition crossed her pallid face as she looked up. The person who had ad- dressed her was a girl she had seen once or twice at Grasp & Throttle's. They had been nothing more than speaking acquaintances, yet amid her friendlessness Cinderella welcomed any familiar face. Her innocent heart read no hidden motive in the smoothly-spoken story of her companion, to the effect that she was also seeking employment. She DECODED. 57 had found a place where they wanted several opera- tors on bindery work. It was too late to apply that night. She affected a deep sympathy as she listened to as much of her sorrowful experience as Cinderella cared to impart. Then she invited her to share her room with her until she could do better. "I have a room by myself," she said, " and enough money to buy food until we are rich enough to live better. Come, Cinderella." And half an hour later, despite the gloomy, di- lapidated appearance of her quarters, Cinderella felt grateful and comfortable in the apartment to which her companion led her. " I am going out for a little while," said the girl after she had lit a lamp. " You won't be lonely?" Myrtle Blake nodded and smiled negatively. The thought of rest was all absorbing now, and she closed her eyes wearily as the door closed upon her new friend, and she drifted back over the dark ex- perience of the week vaguely, haunting "y. Her companion, once clear of the building, made her way with rapid steps to a street some distance away. She paused before a large drinking saloon, proceeded to the private entrance, and ascended to a room on the floor above. As she caught sight of a man seated at a table, conversing with a com- panion, she beckoned to him. The man was Bryce Williard, his companion the infamous Bartels. Williard's eyes were eager as he answered the girl's signal. "Well," he demanded quickly, "what news?" In reply she laughed cunningly, and silently ex- tended her open hand. Williard stared at her curiously. " What does that mean? " he demanded. " The money you promised." Williard uttered a pleased ejaculation. 58 DECOYED. " You don't mean to say you've found the girl? " " I do, and caged her, too. You know my old room. There's the key to it. Cinderella is there; now pay the money, and remember I'm not to be mixed up in the affair." Williard drew a roll of bills from his pocket, gave several to the girl, dismissed her with a commenda- tory expression, and returned to Bartels, engaging him in deep, earnest conversation. Poor Cinderella, the object of all these plots, unsuspecting of what was transpiring to still fur- ther persecute her, was restlessly pacing the apart- ment where the girl had left her. Rest and thought brought such harrowing memories of the past, that they drove her frantic. She had gone to an old- fashioned window leading out on a rude balcony, and had gazed wearily at the snow-covered court below. She had sought to read, to sleep, to drive away the torturing thoughts, and started suddenly at the sound of footsteps in the corridor without. She started wiMly as the door opened. At first she was amazed, then startled to the verge of ter- ror. A man wearing an enveloping cloak and heavy slouch hat, had quietly opened the door and closed it. As he lifted his hat, the girl recognized him with a cry of mortal fear. " Bryce Williard! " fell from her trembling lips. He warned her to silence. He did not advance toward her, but in low, ominous tones said: " Wait, before you shrink from me, or are fool enough to give an alarm. You fly vainly from your fate, my pretty Cinderella. You were brought here under my directions. I want you to listen to what I have to say quietly, and you will do so if you value your own safety." She drew back still farther at the vague threat in Bryce Williard's tone. She grew frantic to escape from the man's presence. The door was blocked DECOYED. 59 by his form. Then her trembling hand fell on the window-frame, as she cried wildly: " Inhuman wretch, will you hound me to the last? " " Aye, until we understand each other. You struggle vainly, girl. In this house my will is law. You cannot escape. Choose now and at once. I have provided for every exigency. I offer honor- ably to make you my wife this night. Refuse, and you shall be mine forcibly. I have sworn it." He was not prepared for the quick, determined flash that came into the wan face. Quick as light, Cinderella tore open the window and sprang to the snow-covered balcony without. It trembled be- neath her weight. With terrified eyes and bated breath, in thrilling, reigning tones she spoke: " Yours willingly! " she cried. " I would rather die than wed the man who murdered my darling mother, who seeks to drive me to despair and death. Bryce Williard, leave this room, allow me to go hence at once, or you will repent it. " He made a sudden move toward the window. He checked his progress and paled suddenly, as he saw the girl made a backward move. " Back! " she cried; " another step, and I will fling myself to the pavement below, and my death will be upon your guilty soul! " 60 WEDDED AND LOST. CHAPTER VII. WEDDED AND LOST. "THE girl is gone!" Percy Grey, hastening down from his apartment to inquire after the welfare of his charge, the morn- ing after Myrtle Grey's flight, recoiled as if dealt a sudden blow. In response to his query regarding the young girl he had thought of all the wakeful night through with solicitous tenderness, the housekeeper had announced her disappearance. "Gone!" he gasped out, reading a concealed perplexed expression in the woman's face. " You let her go when you know I was interested." " She had nothing to do whatever with the girl's departure," spoke the stern voice of Ansel Grey, suddenly appearing on the scene. " When she awoke this morning the bed was vacant, and the rear door unlocked. You will do well to see that nothing is missing, Mrs. Vivien." Percy Grey paled at the pitiless insinuation of his aged uncle. He did not speak, however, then. It was only after he had fully inquired into the mat- ter of Cinderella's flight, that he appeared before Ansel Grey in the library. " Uncle," he said, calmly but determinedly, " underlying the sudden departure of Myrtle Blake from this house is a mystery and a plot. Stay; the words ready on your lips to bid me abandon the poor child to her fate are futile. I shall seek her, and I shall find her. I shall make her my wife; and if I find that through you her departure has been caused, I will never darken these doors again." A sudden agony of alarm crossed Ansel Grey's white face. WEDDED AND LOST. 6 1 " Through me! " he stammered. " What have I to do or care for the girl, except to save you from a humiliating mesalliance? " " That I know not, but you hate this girl, hate the innocence and purity that makes her a queen among women. My mind is determined. I love Myrtle Blake, and she shall not be driven from the love that seeks to cherish and protect her. " Then he was gone gone, leaving Ansel Grey a fretting, fuming monument of rage and dismay. His heart set on his handsome nephew, he too fully realized the firmness of the mind he could never mold to his will. " Let affairs take their course," breathed Blanche Vansant in his ear, as they met at the breakfast- table; " he will never find Myrtle Blake. If he does, she will only fly the farther from him. Trust me, believe me. I have plotted too surely to lose the happiness I crave the love of the man who will soon forget the romantic folly of a passing fancy." They little knew the fervency and depth of love that had inspired Percy Grey; they little dreamed that the dark plots they concealed and cherished were destined soon to work out new complications, amidst the bewildering confusion of which they would be at a disadvantage, as well as the innocent victims of their mutual scheme. For Percy Grey no longer sought to hide from himself or from the world that he had met his fate; that the love he had experienced and the influence of Myrtle Blake's gentle voice and winning face was the love of his lifetime, He had hoped to find her readily; he had dis- missed the growing suspicion of some sinister in- fluence to urge Cinderella's flight for the time being. A visit to her former home revealed the fact of her absence since the previous night. A call at the factory gave him a vague trace of her. He grew 62 WEDDED AND LOST. sick at heart as the waning afternoon found him treading the streets in vain search of the woman grown so unexpectedly dear to him, as he realized the perils that beset her path. At last, in sheer despair, Percy Grey called at a detective agency. A special officer was detailed to follow his instructions. He furnished him a de- scription of the missing girl, promising him a liberal reward for the disclosure of her whereabouts, and then, weary and disappointed, returned home. The brooding anxiety on his gloomy face warned Ansel Grey to silence and revealed his disappoint- ment to the satisfied Blanche Vansant. " He will not find her. Myrtle Blake will fly the city, to her death, perhaps," she whispered huskily, as she watched Percy Grey plunged in gloomy reverie, from a shadowed corner of the drawing- room. It was shortly after dark when Blanche Vansant aroused to a quick excitement and interest. A ring at the door-bell had been followed by the admission of a stranger to Percy Grey's presence, and, as she heard the latter employ the word " detective," she strained her hearing to catch every word that was said. " I have traced the girl." Blanche Vansant's eyes flashed with rage as she saw Percy Grey spring excitedly to his feet at the glad announcement. " Where?" he demanded rapturously, eagerly. The detective named the place whither Cinderella had been lured by Bryce Williard's confederate and her former working-companion. He was volubly giving the details of his labors when Percy stopped him, paying him for his services, showing him to the door, and then hastening to his own room. Blanche Vansant's face grew hard and sullen. " He will find her; his headstrong spirit will WEDDED AND LOST. 63 brook no interference on his uncle's part. Will she disregard her father's injunctions? Will he dare to bring her here again to defy Ansel Grey, to torture my passionate soul with her presence? " The fair hands became clinched, the woman's form trembled with the passion that consumed her. Then a crafty, determined light came into her false eyes. " I will follow him. I, too, will seek out this girl. She shall not gain this man, even if I have to kill her," she hissed forth. It was five minutes later that Percy Grey hurried from the mansion. His steps were shadowed though he knew it not. Blanche Vansant, attired in a dress hastily taken from a servant's room and wearing a heavy veil, traced him step by step. He reached the building where the detective had directed him, but drew back slightly as a suspicious scene met his view. A carriage, with a driver on the seat, stood in front of the structure; a man who seemed on guard stood just within the open door- way. At that moment a familiar cry thrilled every pulse of the excited Percy Grey. Looking up, he saw the window of a room on the second floor torn violently open, and the woman he sought and loved, Myrtle Blake, spring upon the frail balcony. He could not hear the wild, impetuous words she spoke, but his quick mind discerned that she was in some position of peril; that pursuit from the interior of the apartment had driven her to the bal- cony. He cast but one glance at her, and then dashed around to the front of the house. He did not notice the shrinking figure of a woman that flitted past him. He rudely dashed aside the man in the doorway. Straight up the stairway Percy dashed, singling out the room with the balcony, breaking open the door, and confront- ing the amazed Bryce Williard. 64 WEDDED AND LOST. With a cry of wild relief and joy, Myrtle Blake turned from the balcony. With a wild oath, Williard drew a knife and sprang upon the foe he quickly recognized. Percy Grey read the newly-conceived villainy of the man he so despised. He warded off the knife- thrust of the murderous wretch and dealt him a blow that sent him reeling and senseless to the floor. Cinderella, forgetful of all save that manly pres- ence, with clasped hands and grateful eyes hastened towards her rescuer. She uttered an alarmed cry as the sound of some one hastening up the stairs awakened her to a new sense of peril. " Be careful," she quivered; " this man may have his accomplices at hand." " He has them at hand, but I do not fear them. Wait. Trust all ta me. I will avoid an open con- flict, for your sake." Percy Grey seized the cloak and hat of the pros- trate Williard as he spoke. He clasped the arm of the half-fainting girl and whispered a quick caution into her ear. " Obey me; follow me," he murmured, as the door opened. The man he had thrust aside in the room below had come into the apartment. He only cast a cas- ual glance at the prostrate figure on the floor, and then, deceived by Percy's appearance in Williard's cloak and hat, retreated to the hall again with the words : " Hurry up, Williard. This row will arouse the police. The carriage is ready." He led the way down the stairs, Percy Grey fol- lowing. The latter pressed Myrtle's hand reassur- ingly as the man opened the door of the vehicle. He half hesitated, then. A sudden determination caused him to enter the carriage. WEDDED AND LOST. 65 The man sprang to the seat beside the driver, the latter being no other than Bryce Williard's former accomplice, Bartels. The vehicle dashed down the street. One minute later a second vehicle dashed after it. Blanche Vansant was still on the myste- rious trail of the startling episode of the night. The reaction from the excitement she had gone through caused Myrtle Blake to sink back among the cushions of the carriage, almost fainting. A vague remembrance of the letter from her father aroused her momentarily; but she listened, as in a dream, to the words of her rescuer. " I will follow out this adventure," he said, quickly, rapidly. " Cinderella, my poor, persecuted child. I can conceal my love for you no longer the love of an honest, earnest man. That love has made me discover that you are the victim of some dark plot. Bryce Williard has not sought you only for your beauty. His real motive I shall learn. Courage! These men have so far been deceived by my disguise. When they discover the truth, I will wring their guilty secrets from their lips. " The carriage had taken a course towards the river. It turned into unfamiliar lanes and by-ways, and finally paused. Looking ahead a square or so, surrounded by extensive wharves and lumber-yards, Percy Grey saw the river gleaming darkly. The vehicle had paused before a dilapidated hut. The man who had directed him to the carriage now opened the door. " You seem to have quieted the girl," he mut- tered significantly. " The place is reached, and Bartels will go at once for the minister." The minister! Percy Grey's eyes flashed, but he was silent. He reassured the frightened girl at his side, as he led her into a room dimly lighted and saw her sink into a chair. He glanced anxiously Desperate 5. 66 WEDDED AND LOST. at the man speaking with Bartels, who drove off a moment later. " Why did you come here? What does it all mean? " murmured Cinderella, in a frightened, trembling tone of voice. " That we shall soon learn," replied Percy, calmly. " Fear not, my darling. This night will see Bryce Williard's plans settled for good. Ah, she has fainted!" His words were verified as Cinderella, with a moan, sank back in the chair, pale and lifeless. Percy was anxiously chafing her hand when the door opened. Williard's accomplice had led a dark, clerical-looking man into the room. " It's all right, Williard," he whispered; " here is the clergyman. I sent the carriage back. Do you need any help?" "No." A confused thrill held Percy Grey silent for a moment or two. He tried to realize what had transpired, and then in a flash the truth came to his mind. Bryce Williard intended forcing Myrtle Blake into an unwilling marriage. A wild impulse crossed Percy Grey's" mind as he saw the fair young girl open her eyes to consciousness once more. In burning, eloquent words, whispered quickly into her startled ear, he told her all. In the plead- ing tones of love he imparted to her how dear she was to him, how security and peace could be ob- tained by taking advantage of Bryce Williard's pro- vision to wed her. " Become my wife, "he breathed intensely. " The clergy man is here; all is ready; oh, my darling, my darling! if you can love a man who would sacrifice his life for you, consent." She shrank back with a timid cry, but he mistook its import, little dreaming of the vague, haunting memory of a father's dying injunction that filled WEDDED AND LOST. 6/ her mind. But he read the love-light in her eyes. He drew her swaying form closer to his own; he heeded not her half-dismayed murmur, as he said to the stranger before her: "Proceed with the ceremony." The weird scene, the strange clergyman, all were forgotten amid the excitement and love that thrilled Percy Grey's soul. He noted that the form at his side trembled unsteadily; he noted that a battle of emotions seemed prevailing in her mind; but he caught her to his arms as the ceremony con- cluded. The clergyman withdrew at the beckon- ing nod of Williard's accomplice at the door. " Mine, all mine," he whispered. " My darling wife, my Cinderella! Look up and tell me you love me! " Love him! He had only to glance at the long- ing, agitated face to read a love deeper than his own. She could not speak; she could not think. A ray of blissful happiness seemed to thrill her soul an echoing influence of that letter from her father appalled her mind. "What have I done? My father, my father, forgive me ! " Percy Grey led her toward the door, un- heeding her incoherent words. The clergyman had gone, the carriage too. Williard's acccomplice stared curiously at him. " Ain't you going to stay here? I thought you decided " " I will return," was the quiet reply. " The girl needs air; let me pass. Courage, Cinderella," he whispered to his clinging charge. " Ah, what is that? " They had proceeded toward the lighted streets of the city. He drew aside into a little lane lead- ing to the river as he looked ahead. A wild, hat- less form was dashing toward the old hut. 68 WEDDED AND LOST. " Bryce Williard," muttered Percy Grey, be- tween his teeth. " If I were alone, I would punish him as he deserves." " No, no; fly, Percy, fly. He will do you harm. This way. In Heaven's name do not further im- peril yourself for my sake." A sweet thrill of joy at her tender words caused Percy to obey her. He threaded the dark lane, hoping to find a safe retreat for her, and, returning, face down the villain who had persecuted her. The lane terminated directly at the river's banks. There was no way leading thence to the street. Percy Grey paused as he glanced back. Two forms were scouring the vicinity for some trace of the fugitives. Bryce Williard, recovering from Percy Grey's assault, was on the trail of the girl he had plotted against and lost. " Hide yourself anywhere," spoke Percy, " and fear not for me." A little yawl-boat, secured by a rope to the wharf, lay by its side. The trembling girl obeyed his injunction, stepping within the boat, and, breathless and pale, peered down the lane in the direction he faced. From a pile of lumber, near at hand, a dark, flashing face looked forth at that moment. Neither saw her, engrossed in the exciting episode of the moment. With the crafty silence of the serpent, the veiled figure suddenly crept into view, then nearer and nearer to the boat. A knife flashed forth. A keen, sharp blade rent the rope securing the frail bark. A wild scream of alarm parted Myrtle Blake's lips, as she turned and saw the woman spring quickly back into cover. Percy Grey, turning, uttered a groan of horror, which mingled with the cry of his imperiled bride. He only saw the form of the mysterious intruder A DESPERATE PLOTTER. 69 disappear; saw a jeweled bracelet, unclasped in the struggle, drop at his feet, and, seizing it quickly, he sprang toward the wharf. He forget the secret enemy, the advancing Wil- liard and his emissary. Flinging his hat to the wharf, he stepped to its very edge to spring reck- lessly after the frantic Cinderella, fast being borne down the stream. He started, as if dealt a sudden blow. A hoarse whistle rent the air. A huge, black, moving mass, a rushing tug-boat, rounded a curve of the river and drove down on the frail bark. A bubbling roar, a splash, and the huge tossing boat crashed into the frail yawl containing the bride of an hour. He staggered where he stood, his eyes blinded, his senses reeling. Life was an agonized blur; he reeled frantically forward, his bloodless lips gasping forth the words: " Merciful Heavens! My Cinderella; my darling bride, she is lost!" CHAPTER VIII. A DESPERATE PLOTTER. TWO hours after the occurrence of the events detailed in the last chapter, there was a quick, sharp ring at the door-bell of Ansel Grey's stately man- sion. Its proprietor had not yet retired to rest. The startling developments of the past few days, and, perhaps, a vague, uneasy premonition of some new impending peril had made the life of the old man an anxious one of late. As on the evening when the sight of Myrtle Blake's white face had recalled a dreadful past, and brought back a haunting dread at its revival, so now 70 A DESPERATE PLOTTER. Ansel Grey followed the servant to the door, curi- ous as to the identity of so late a visitor. "What is it?" he demanded, sharply, pressing past the servant as he caught the mention of his nephew's name. " An accident, or worse, sir," answered a man attired in semi-official uniform. " I was asking this girl here if I've come to the right place." " About what ? " " Is that the name of any one living here, sir?" Ansel Grey's trembling hand seized the envelope the officer had presented. " Percy Grey! " he gasped out, apprehensively, reading his nephew's name. " Has anything hap- pened to him? " " The man in whose pocket we found that, and other letters like it, sir, is in a carriage yonder." " And injured? Not seriously? " " Dead or dying. There's no use hiding the truth, sir. We found him lying in a pool of blood near the river. " Ansel Grey waited for no further words. His face was white with horror and grief as he tore down the steps leading to the street. Within the carriage, his head supported by another officer of the harbor police, was Percy Grey, mo- tionless and insensible. There was a ghastly pallor on the handsome face, and the clustering hail' was matted and wet with the blood which issued from a deep wound near the temple. The officers had but to gaze on the agonized feat- ures of Ansel Grey to read there the answer to their question regarding their charge. As they bore him to the steps and into a chamber, the old man wrung his hands like one demented. " My Percy, my brave boy!'' he wailed. " I have killed him by driving him forth to seek her. Dolts! A DESPERATE PLOTTER. 7 1 idiots! " he raved, his old irritability flashing forth as the men and the servants stared helplessly at his grief. " You stand here when he may be dying he, my only stay and hope. A doctor, a surgeon, quick! He must not die he shall not die! " A face whiter than his own, eyes that rivaled his glittering ones in their expression of utter anguish, looked in on the scene a minute later. Blanche Vansant, seated in her own apartment, had listened with bated breath to the gossiping an- nouncement of a servant passing by, to the effect that Percy Grey had been brought home dead. The words had chilled her guilty soul to horror. In a flash she seemed to recognize a swift retribu- tion in fate thus robbing her of Percy Grey's love after all her evil plotting. How she had waited and watched for Percy Grey's return ! " He will be mine, all mine, now, my rival re- moved from my path," she had told her longing heart, as she stood at the mantel and counted the slow minutes as they passed. He would never know of her part in the death of Myrtle Blake, and from the memory of her love the siren believed she could win him in time. Hers had been the hand which had cut adrift the boat at the river which held Myrtle Blake. She had followed the carriage containing the per- secuted Cinderella and Percy Grey, but had dis- missed it temporarily when she saw the man she loved and the woman she hated enter the house where the marriage ceremony had taken place. Of that ceremony, however, she had no knowl- edge. She had followed the wedded pair silently, se- cretly; had cut the boat adrift; had witnessed Percy Grey's agony, and then, with the satisfied hate of a demon at witnessing Myrtle Blake at last removed from her path, had fled from the spot, little dream- 72 A DESPERATE PLOTTER. ing that even her shrewd soul had lost the connect- ing link in the chain of circumstances surrounding the plottings of that weird night. She had waited for Percy's return after gaining the mansion, hour by hour, and now it had come thus! First the cold anguish of utter despair had chilled her tortured heart; then faint hope warmed it again to the passionate longing of all her intense nature. For the surgeon, hastily summoned, had come at last. Percy Grey was not dead, nor dying, but he had received such a terrible wound a wound, the surgeon said gravely, which might confine him to his bed in delirium and suffering for many a long week. " I will be his nurse," said Blanche Vansant jeal- ously, when the doctor spoke of the necessity of constant and skilled care. And she whispered to her leaping heart wildly: " And I will win him back to life, to hope; to love. I will gain his gratitude, and then the affec- tion I so crave. But for this cruel injury! Bryce Wil- liard wrought it. He shall pay for it he shall rue it dearly." She had no further need of his cooperation now, and her selfish nature wavered not as she thought of how, having served her turn, she might get rid of the man whose knowledge of her life was danger- ous to her interests. " I have gained all in the removal of a rival from my path," she murmured. " He has lost Myrtle Blake, and will haunt my path in his rage at her death probably vengefully telling my past to Percy Grey at my hour of triumph. He is an unsafe ally, a dangerous enemy. I must drive him from the city, and then gain Percy Grey's love, and name, and fortune." For the present, however, Blanche Vansant aban- A DESPERATE PLOTTER. 73 doned every thought and energy to the care of Percy Grey. All through the remainder of that night and the ensuing day she hovered over his coach constantly. The period of insensibility had been followed by one of high fever and delirium. The siren's dark eyes showed how little of remorse and regret she experienced, how much of jealousy and hatred she bore for the dead even now, when the pallid lips of Percy Grey, amid his ravings, named the dear name of his murdered love. She was almost worn out with solicitude and care that evening, and was passing through the hall to her own room when a servant handed her a letter. It had been sent by mail, and she wondered at that incautious operation on the part of her corre- spondent, as she recognized the handwriting from the superscription. " Bryce Williard," she murmured, hastening to her room; " what can he have to write to me? " The letter was a brief one, and hurriedly indited, for it was scrawled in pencil. It ran: " Come and see me to-night at the address given below. I am mixed up in some bad trouble, through Bartels, and you must help me out of it." She thought over the letter for a long time. Then, wearied as she was, she determined to reply to it personally. It was an hour later when Blanche Vansant reached the place designated in Bryce Williard's note. It proved to be a dilapidated building in a wretched portion of the city, and she drew her veil closer as several men lounging about the entrance to the house stared curiously at her. When at length she found the room to which she had been directed, and was finally admitted, Wil- liard's caution in opening the door, and his frequent glances from the window to the street, told her, to- 74 A DESPERATE PLOTTER. gether with his pale face and anxious manner, that something unusual had occurred. " What is it? " demanded Blanche, sharply, fear- ing some new complication in her own affairs. " Why have you sent for me? You wrote that you were in trouble." "lam." " In what way? " " Through your precious plotting and Grey's meddling. We have no time to lose, Blanche Vansant; we have played a deep game, and it has resulted in utter defeat. The girl, Cinderella, is dead so much ior my loss. Percy Grey " The woman's eyes flashed a latent fire. " Why did you try to kill him? " she asked, in a tone of voice that was tremulous with half-sup- pressed rage and emotion. " Was I going to let him kill me, when he sprang at me like a tiger on the river bank, and when I saw the woman I had schemed for a victim to his rashness in placing her in an unsecured boat?" Blanche Vansant's dark eyes veiled a triumphant expression. She breathed more freely. Williard had no suspicion of her part in the casting adrift of the boat. " I was wild with rage when Percy Grey stole Myrtle Blake from my power," resumed Williard. " When I recovered from the etfects of the blow he dealt me at the house whence he fled in the carriage with the girl, I sped after him. I saw him dashing toward the river, and it was there we had a hand- to-hand conflict. When I saw the harbor police coming, I turned to find Bartels. He had disap- peared, but an hour later I knew why. " Blanche Vansant looked interested. Neither she nor Williard knew of the marriage ceremony per- formed between Percy Grey and Myrtle Blake, A DESPERATE PLOTTER. 75 Williard's narrative showed that he had arrived too late to witness it or to hear of it. " The man Darrell, who, with Bartels, had been helping me to carry out my plot against the girl, came to me at my rooms a few hours later, how- ever," continued Williard. " He was in a high state of excitement. I never told you, out we three have been engaged in a little private speculation for some time." " What do you mean? " inquired Blanche, curiously. Bryce Williard motioned her to silence, and arose slowly to his feet. He walked stealthily to the door, and listened intently. Then he crossed to the windows, and peered down at the street. Seemingly, he had satisfied himself that no one was likely to see or overhear them, for he went to a corner of the miserably furnished room, and, lifting aboard, drew forth two tightly secured packages. " Bartels has been arrested, and Darrell has nar- rowly escaped the same fate, and has now left the city," said Williard. " We were all in a game to make money, but the police must have been watch- ing Bartels, and probably myself, for some time. Anyway, Darrell directed me to come to their room and secure these two packages. I came. When I went to leave, I saw in the vicinity several men whom I recognized as detectives. They may not want me, particularly, as I have kept in the dark in this case, but they know Bartels had a room here, and have seen me in it. When I leave I may be stopped and searched. Whether I go or not, the room will be ransacked." "Well? " uttered Blanche, impatiently. " They must not find these packages. Take them, and secure them well about you." 76 A DESPERATE PLOTTER. Blanche Vansant obeyed him, but asked, " What are they? " " One is a package of counterfeit bonds." " And the other? " " The results of our speculation over forty thousand dollars in cash. " The woman started, and her eyes gleamed avariciously at the mention of so large an amount of money. " I trust you with them until I can return safely," said Williard. " You intend to leave the city, then? " " Yes, until this affair is over, provided I am not arrested. If I am, you must promise to quietly use the money to secure my own liberation and that of Bartels." " I promise," uttered the false lips, while the false, cruel heart beat triumphantly at the acquisition of a new power over Bryce Williard's wealth and secrets. " Go now, and I will later try to escape. I man- aged to send the letter I wrote you undetected to the mail. I may successfully evade the officers. I will write you when I can. Meantime, your plans regarding Percy Grey " " I have none," lied the woman, shortly. " Fare- well!" She passed from the apartment, her trusting accomplice never doubting her fidelity. She passed the detective unquestioned, and reached the Grey mansion in safety. " Forty thousand dollars!" she murmured as she secured the two packages Williard had given her in a cabinet. " It gives me new means to carry out my plans. Bryce Williard has placed himself com- pletely in my power, and his fear of the police will keep him away from the city until my plans are accomplished, and I can defy him." NEW COMPLICATIONS. ?/ She reckoned on clear sailing in the future. She littled dreamed, however, that her own and Wil- liard's ignorance of what had occurred in the river- side house, when Percy Grey and Myrtle Blake were made man and wife, was the one dropped link in the chain of destiny, the one key-note to the episodes of the future, that was to complicate and defeat her most cherished plans. CHAPTER IX. NEW COMPLICATIONS. WHILE Blanche Vansant was weaving ner net of plot and intrigue around those whose destinies she sought to encompass within its meshes, one of her innocent victims lay at the portals of death, all unconscious of her motives and their operation. The hours of the night drifted into dawn, and night coming again found Percy Grey wildly battling with the vagaries of delirium, or passively submitting to the apathy and stupor of exhaustion and despair. The days drifted into weeks, and he knew it not. If, when he opened his eyes, the shaded room showed his uncle gravely, solicitously watching him from an easy chair, or the light, flitting figure of the siren hovering over his couch, there was no gleam of expressed recognition in Percv Grey's weary eyes. Only ever and anon the white lips would move and frame the beloved names of " Cinderella Myrtle," the wasted fingers would seem to grope for the responsive touch of the hand that had vanished. In such moments Blanche Vansant's dusky brow 78 NEW COMPLICATIONS. would darken, and the jealous eyes would flame to angry hatred, even of the woman she believed dead. " Patience, patience! " she would whisper to her turbulent heart. " He will forget in time he will yet be mine, if artifice or devotion, or both com- bined, can win him." Never was there a more tender nurse. It seemed as if Blanche Vansant had put all the past behind her, and thought only of attaining the one cherished object of her life, the love of the man for whom she had plotted so deeply. From the first, ill as Percy Grey was, the attend- ing physician had given hopes of his ultimate recov- ery. The wound in the head had affected the brain temporarily, but this would, he affirmed, in time disappear, and so it was, for one bright morn- ing Percy Grey came back to life, and opened his eyes to the realities of existence once more. To dwell upon the events of the week that fol- lowed would be only to depict the sufferings of a dis- tressed soul bereft of all earthly hope and joy. The past seemed to him a dreary blank, the future a dark void. He asked no questions of his uncle what could he know of the events of that wild night at the river? He never suspected Blanche Vansant's agency in the matter. Cherishing his secret, thinking only of the untimely fate of the woman he loved, Percy Grey at last arose from his sick-bed, a man haunted with a torturing memory of the bereavement of that weird wedding-night. Often in his days of convalescence his nobler nature would flash forth, and a kindly gratitude be- come expressed to Blanche for her devotion to him when he was ill. But to him it was the mockery of friendship. His heart was buried in the past, and he little dreamed of the wild, passionate joy even this faint recognition gave to the waiting, hoping siren. NEW COMPLICATIONS. 79 She had not again spoken to Ansel Grey of the power she held over him. Between these two a tacit understanding existed. The old man knew that she would claim his aid when the proper time came, and was content to adjudge her a faithful ally, and accept her terms to shield himself from the dread of the secret she held over him. That time dawned at last. She had wearied of seeing her most artful blandishments thrown away on Percy Grey. Except for a courteous bow, or the exchange of a few words when he met her at the table, Percy Grey was as distant from her as ever. When he finally recovered his health, thin- ner and paler than of yore, but still the same hand- some Percy she loved, and daily left the house as if its confinement were that of a prison, Blanche Vansant clinched her fair hands in mute despair, and tried vainly to devise some means of winning his interested attention. She had not heard of Bryce Williard since the night she had obtained the money, and the crafty look in her eyes when she thought of him told that her soul was capable of any treachery to remove him from her path, should his possible reappear- ance conflict with any of her schemes. Twice she had followed Percy Grey from the house, deeply veiled, curious to learn how he passed his time. The result was an important dis- covery on her part. Percy Grey had visited the scene of the river episode immediately after his recovery. All search for Bryce Williard and his associates had proved unavailing, and his investigation only confirmed the belief that Myrtle Blake had been drowned. He learned that a few days after her seeming death a mutilated form, that of a woman, crushed beyond recognition, apparently by passing ships, had been found in the river, taken to the morgue, 80 NEW COMPLICATIONS. and, not being identified, had been buried in the common grave of the poor. His tortured heart impelled him to the belief that it was his lost bride. He accepted this as the truth. He ordered the body removed. Secretly it was conveyed to a beautiful cemetery near the city, and over the newly-made mound, consecrated by his tears of love and regret, Percy cast a wreath of flowers as a last token to the memory of the girl-wife he had loved and lost. All this Blanche Vansant learned, and realizing that he still clung to the past and its memories as fondly as ever, lost patience and faith in her pow- ers of personal enchantment, and decided to ac- complish by intrigue what her powers of witchery had failed to bring about. Her opportunity came at last. With a pallid face and trembling mein Ansel Grey came to her one day and led her into the library. She knew instinctively that something porten- tous had occurred, for he locked the door com- municating with the hall, and glanced nervously around, as with husky voice and tear-filled eyes he bade her be seated. " What has happened? " she demanded sharply, her searching glance sweeping his face curiously. He drew his chair nearer to her own, crumpling a folded sheet of paper in his hand as he spoke. " Ruin! Dishonor! " he whispered, hoarsely. " Listen to me, Blanche Vansant, and heed me well, for all the fabric of fraud and deceit we both have reared bids fair to topple to the ground. " Blanche started, but did not interrupt the old man as he continued: " You forced on me an alliance with yourself; it is well; but you must aid me when unforeseen exi- gencies occur. You hold a secret over me con- cerning Myrtle Blake's father that would ruin me, NEW COMPLICATIONS. 8l You demanded that Percy Grey wed you, or you would reveal that secret, and I agreed. I still agree; but a new enemy has arisen, a new peril menaces us. Read! " He had opened the paper he had crumpled, and had thrust it into her hand. With a perplexed air, yet vaguely alarmed, Blanche Vansant read: " I have called upon you again, and helped my- self to your store. You disowned me and drove me to poverty and then to crime. I return after five years to find Percy Grey installed as your favorite and heir. I take what should be my share, and go. Pursue me, place the officers on my track, and I will tell the secret of your wealth, and drag you to prison with me. Your dealings with John Blake are known to me. If you are wise, pocket your loss philosophically, and'leave me alone. " I will not trouble you again. Samuel Towns- end, our distant relative, I will appeal to next time, as he can spare me what money I want better than you, unless you have prejudiced him, too, against me. Now, accept the consequences, or the family secrets shall be made public. " The penciled scrawl bore a signature entirely unfamiliar to Blanche Vansant it was " Earle Townsend." She looked up at Ansel Grey, with a mystified expression in her eyes. " What does this mean?" she asked, simply. " It means a new complication in all our plans ; it means that unless I can realize from certain securities I possess, I am a beggar. For the last six months, haunted with the dread that my past might some day confront me, I have been secretly converting all I possessed into ready cash. I was amazed at the small amount I realized, for my fortune, by bad management, had wasted away. Desperate 6. 82 NEW COMPLICATIONS. To -day I have its bulk invested in a venture which may turn out richly. The money taken from yonder safe last night robs me of the ready cash to re- deem myself. It is fate ; it is retribution ! The nephew I have loved will be beggared; he will learn of my crimes ; he will hate me, and the man who has robbed me has fled, and I dare not pursue him." "Who is he?" " A nephew so resembling Percy that they seemed like brothers; a willful, wicked man I disowned for his evil career, who now, knowing my secrets, trades upon their value." Ansel Grey's face fell upon his hands, while the woman's eyes were bent upon him, with a specu- lating light in their dark depths. She startled him with her first words: " I can help you. Ansel Grey, induce Percy to wed me, and at once; agree to leave the city with us, and what of your fortune you can retrieve, and I will furnish you the means to repair your broken wealth." "You!" Ansel Grey regarded his companion in bewildered incredulity. Her answer was to draw from her bosom a pack- age. It was the money Bryce Williard had intrusted to her charge. "Promise!" she cried. "The money is here, mine, yours, but Percy Grey must make me his wife."' An eager, avaricious light came into the old man's face. His thin fingers reached tremblingly for the coveted wealth. " I promise it. I swear it!" he cried, wildly. That night Percy Grey knew that in some mys- terious way Blanche Vansant had saved his uncle from bankruptcy. A TERRIBLE CONFESSION. 83 And that night, too, he knew that the sacrifice demanded for her fidelity was that he would award to her a husband's fealty and love. CHAPTER X. A TERRIBLE CONFESSION. "AT last!" The words were uttered in a tone of rapt triumph and passionate delight by Blanche Vansant, and her dusky face glowed with a deepened color, and her eyes gleamed like two radiant stars of light. With parted lips and heaving bosom she stood before a mirror, arranging the long dark hair that was a crown of raven beauty to her fascinating face. Her words announced the fruition of all her fondest hopes and best-laid schemes. Intrigue had triumphed; long, patient plodding had made her victor, and one month after the day she had enabled Ansel Grey to stave off ruin with the money she had received from Bryce Williard, she stood on the threshold of bridal bliss. How had it all come about? It seemed a dream the transition from despair to hope, the gaining of Percy Grey's assent to an early marriage, the seeming success of the compact she had formed with his uncle. When the latter had told Percy of his financial peril when he had hinted darkly at a disgrace Blanche Vansant had warded off first; gratitude and then esteem made him regard the beautiful siren as a devoted friend. The first hint at marriage on his uncle's part amazed him. With stern, sad face he bade Ansel Grey never to refer to it again. His heart was 84 A TERRIBLE CONFESSION. dead, and he could not love ; he would never marry. All this he affirmed determinedly, little dreaming of the plots and wiles thickly hedging his path. Day by day the reproachful pleadings of his uncle assailed him, while the sad, pale face of the plotting Blanche deceived him, and awakened a manly pity. He weakened at last, as it was meant that he should from the first. He offered Blanche Vansant his name in marriage, because she had won the gratitude of the family; because, his own life seem- ingly purposeless, he was prevailed upon to believe that he could brighten hers, and cheer the declining years of an uncle who had always been kind to him. " You are forcing me to an alliance, against which my manhood revolts," he had said to his uncle. " It is like selling myself to a woman, for whom I can never entertain the slightest love;" but old Ansel Grey was not to be turned from his purpose, and, with a thought that duty impelled the sacrifice, that life could be no drearier than it was with Myrtle gone, Percy Grey agreed to the marriage. It was to be a private affair, witnessed only by two friends. They were to leave for the South on the midnight train. Beyond that, Ansel Grey had not imparted his plans to his nephew, although he had arranged to remain permanently away from the city, and had bulked his fortune into ready money. A shuddering sense of self-reproach overcame Percy Grey, and he recoiled mentally from the mockery of the marriage ceremony; but it was over at last, and the words were spoken that made Blanche Vansant his wife. There was no responsive joy in his smileless face as she clung passionately to his arm. His thoughts were far away, and when they were alone, and she began arranging her jewelry ready for the journey, A TERRIBLE CONFESSION. 8$ he sank into a chair, his head bowed in dreaming, bitter thoughts. She had ordered a servant to come for her trunks, and, waiting for the order to be fulfilled, she stole to a stool at his side, her graceful, taper fingers lightly sweeping the strings of a guitar, as if seek- ing to woo the strangely silent husband of an hour from his moody thoughts. How little he knew the true depths of her wily nature, how feebly he comprehended her powers of dissimulation ! As he remembered all his uncle had told him, and sincerely believed that the woman loved him, Percy Grey's hand rested tenderly, almost caressingly, on her head, as a great wave of pity swept his noble heartland then he started vio- lently. She had traced heretofore a studied reserve in his actions, a mute tolerance in his treatment of her, and had grown restive under it; but now a wild alarm flashed forth, as he sprang to his feet, and, with distended eyes and pale face, stood star- ing blankly at an article lying on the stand he had not noticed before. It was a bracelet, singularly formed, and peculiar in its setting and material. Its sight, at first startling him strangely, suddenly seemed to revive some bewildered memory, for a slight spasm of pain crossed his face, and his eyes closed convulsively. In a hushy, tremulous tone, he demanded of his dumbfounded companion: " That bracelet? where did it come from? it is yours? " Over the dusky face of the enchantress came a pallor, quick and changing. Her mind going back to the night when Myrtle Blake disappeared be- neath the waters of the river, she replied, in a faint, frightened tone of voice: 86 A TERRIBLE CONFESSION. "Yes, it is mine." The man's eyes were fixed eagerly, searchingly upon her face. "And its mate?" "Is lost." "Wait!" His voice had grown cold and stern. He walked rapidly from the apartment to his own. Blanche Vansant heard his returning footsteps, echoing on her hearing like foot-falls of doom. She sank to a chair, with a gasping cry of terror. She covered her face with her hands, and crouched back with blanched face and terror-stricken mien. " The other bracelet! " she gasped forth. " I lost it that night at the river. Can he have found it?" At that moment Percy Grey entered the room. In his hand he bore a bracelet, the very counter- part of the one he had accidentally seen a few mo- ments previous. In his white face was a horrible suspicion, half-expressed; in all his actions, the bearing of a stern, unrelenting judge calling a criminal to ac- count. " The same they are the same! " the terrified woman heard him murmur. " Blanche, you say this bracelet is yours. Then its mate is yours, too. I found it at a spot where accident or design sent to her death the only woman I ever loved." The words aroused all the fear and, too, all the jealousy of the siren's heart. " When I was struck down by an unseen enemy, and Myrtle Blake perished before my eyes, that bracelet I found. I cherished it, believing it to be hers. Speak! If it is yours, how came it there? Woman, woman! you cannot deceive me. I read it in your eyes you know of that tragedy you were there! " A TERRIBLE CONFESSION. 8/ He had seized her hands, and his eyes burned down into her own. In that moment of supreme emotion Blanche Vansant forgot herself. Diplo- macy and intrigue were lost amid jealousy of this man's undying love for the woman she _iated. " I was there yes, I saw her die. I gloated in her death, for, Percy Grey, I loved you better than she!" Her voice was sharp and exited, her bosom heav- ing with passionate emotion. " For you my hand sent her adrift; for love of you I glided into crime. Mercy! mercy! oh, my husband! Bestow upon me one smile of affection, for I have sacrificed for you my very soul." The truth was out at last the truth which drove Percy Grey back appalled which transfixed him with mute horror as the excited woman poured forth incoherently, passionately, the whole fateful story of her plotting for his love. She never doubted but that its sacrifices would appeal to him. She believed that, as she told how she and Ansel Grey had sought to secure his hap- piness, he would relent toward her, and she hinted darkly at the secret which menaced the personal safety and good name of his uncle. " For love of you I did all. Oh! my Percy, pity and love the woman who would give her life for one word of affection! " She paused abruptly. Percy Grey had started back with a cry that drove the woman at his feet from a kneeling supplicant to a stricken, horrified thing of guilt. " You killed her! " he uttered in awful tones of condemnation and anguish. " Back! or my brain will go mad. Woman! fiend! the sainted creature your hands have sent to her fate was my wife! " 88 FROM THE DEAD. CHAPTER XI. FROM THE DEAD. HIS wife! With a cry of amazement and terror, the guilty Blanche Vansant sank to a chair, transfixed and overwhelmed. One look only, of awful condemnation and hor- ror, Percy Grey cast upon her. Then, his hands clinched in agony, he dashed from the apartment and down the stairs like one demented. " I have lost him lost him in the hour of tri- umph. Oh, fool that I was, to confess the crime I might have concealed! " burst from the siren's lips. " He shall not leave me I cannot lose him! " And she sprang to her feet wildly, enveloped herself in a cloak, and the old, determined plot- ter stole noiselessly down the stairs after her husband. She paused, and drew back into a sheltered alcove as she reached the vicinity of the library. From within sounded the voices of two men, the one wildly passionate and bitterly reproachful, the other gasping and pitiful. With bated breath she heard Percy Grey accuse his uncle of plotting against his happiness, and her heart grew hard as he spoke of her with all the aroused horror of his soul. Then he dashed from the room, while the voice of Ansel Grey called to him in agonized accents to return, while his thin hands were clasped toward him in piteous entreaty to spare him not to leave him broken-hearted amid his sorrow and sin. " You have blighted my life; your evil accom- plice, the woman I loathe and hate, has robbed me of my darling bride. May heaven's justice come FROM THE DEAD. 89 to you both for your awful crime! " were Percy Grey's parting words. The night breeze brought no cooling influence to his fevered brain. His brain on fire, he dashed from the house distracted with agony and grief. He was unconscious of the fact that Blanche Vansant had glided after him, and that a third per- son, a man closely muffled, had stolen from the shadow of the mansion, taking up'the trail of both. To what were the fateful events of that night tending? Not one of the actors in the tragedy under play realized the culmination soon to occur. A shudder passed over the frame of Blanche Vansant, as at last Percy Grey's wild flight was stopped. At the verge of a beautiful public park, where a cemetery began, he had threaded a se- cluded path. In the white moonlight, above a little mound, was plainly revealed a marble slab bearing a single name Cinderella. He staggered forward, as if he would cast him- self upon the grave before him, and die amid the bitter memories of the hour. Then a strange thing occurred. The bewildered Blanche Vansant drew back, appalled, amazed, sick at heart. With one wild cry of delight, Percy Grey sprang forward, his arm outstretched, his eyes agleam with hope and joy. For the moonlight framed a dim figure beyond the mound, which, assuming form and substance, showed the sad, sweet face of the bride he mourned as lost. Over the dead the living. It was she; no phan- tom, no delusion of his favored fancy. Thus they had met again, at the portals of the grave. It was Cinderella! 90 IN THE WHITE MOONLIGHT. CHAPTER XII. IN THE WHITE MOONLIGHT. ONE wild, surging cry of bliss ineffable welled to the lips of Percy Grey, and then, blinded to all in the dark background of that radiant picture, he sprang toward the beautiful presence before him. Wraith or human, its white face turned toward his own, its hands seemed extended to meet his, its murmuring tones, choked with emotion, seemed to breathe a fond delight. The torn, distracted heart of the dumbfounded siren gave one wild thrill of superstitious alarm, and then became steeled to the realities of the moment. "She lives, oh! Heavens! and he loves her still! " came in a gasping breath from Blanche Vansant's trembling lips. A blood-red mist seemed to obscure her vision; a quickened memory of what she had lost aroused all the latent fury of that malignant nature. " Wedded and no wife! for she steps between us," she hissed, darkly. " I will kill her. " Her jeweled hand sought her bosom, and drew thence a gem-bedecked stiletto. It glittered cruelly in the flashing moonlight as, crouching like an enraged tigress, her fair face distorted with jealous hatred and burning revenge, she seemed about to spring upon her innocent prey. "Fool!" An unfamiliar voice hissed the word into her ear, a strong arm grasped her wrist in a clasp like iron. It drew her back within the shadow of a clump of lilacs. Struggling, resisting, she did not see the face of her captor. " Unhand me! Who are you? " "Silence look!" IN THE WHITE MOONLIGHT. QI The same low but steady voice spoke, its pos- sessor never relinquishing the hold of her hand. From beneath the folds of a long, enveloping cloak her companion extended a directing finger. She followed its course, impelled by some subtle power to obey the stern mandate in silence. The thrilling tableaux in the white moonlight had changed. Above the simple slab over the green mound still hovered the figures of man and wife, and Blanche Vansant's attention was again riveted upon them. In that trembling moment of recognition their hands had not yet met, Face to face, the man eager and thrilling to wondering hope, the woman half shrinking, yet all aglow with tender love, a new figure disturbed all the serenity of the strange scene. From some near covert a form that of a man had sprang suddenly. With one wild, bitter oath he glided between Percy Grey and the woman he loved. A ray of moonlight illumined his features as he lifted his head. Blanche Vansant recoiled as though dealt a sudden blow. " Merciful Heaven! What does this mean? " Silence! You shall soon learn," came the calm, cold reply at her ear. " You know that man? " ' Yes," the pallid lips assented. " His name?" " John Blake, the man Ansel Grey so deeply wronged, the father of yonder girl, and the man " " The man I left for dead at the lonely riverside hut," her guilty heart whispered, but her lips failed for the utterance, as she was overwhelmed to appalled silence at the fast-occurring episodes of the fateful night. " Back! hated member of a race I have sworn to 92 IN THE WHITE MOONLIGHT. pursue to the grave, kin of the man who has made my life a living hell back from the child whom I would rather see dead than clasp hands with the nephew of Ansel Grey." The words fell in an awful tone of menace from the lips of the new-comer. He had grasped his daughter's arm fiercely. He drew her from the grave roughly, as she extended her hands piteously toward Percy Grey. " Mercy, oh, my father! It is he, my Percy, my husband!" " A curse upon the destiny that formed the alliance! Silence! Obey me, or worse will come." With a low cry the stricken Cinderella allowed him to lead her away from the grave. For a single moment, bewildered at the strange intrusion, Percy Grey stood rooted to the spot. Then he sprang after the retreating form of his beloved bride and her father, John Blake. He had heard his wild words, but had not com- prehended their true significance. He saw the flashing eyes and menacing 'ace, but did not heed their import of hatred and revenge. " Myrtle! Cinderella! " he grasped forth; " who is this man? " " He is my father. One word only; let me speak but one word to him," pleaded Myrtle, moaningly. " No! " came the harsh reply. " Stand back, I say; you shall never see her face again! " " You shall not part us!" cried Percy Grey, en- deavoring to pass the barrier of John Blake's strong arm. A cry that resembled the choked utterances of a man driven to insane fury broke from Blake. " Scoundrel! " he raved. " I will kill you, if you cross my path again." A crushing blow succeeded the words. That IN THE WHITE MOONLIGHT. 93 blow, delivered with terrific force under the im- pulse of concentrated passion, drove Percy Grey to the ground like a shot. Without so much as a cry he sank inanimate over the grave by which he had so often mourned the bride he had recovered only to lose again. " You have killed him! Oh, my Percy, my dar- ling, speak to me, speak to me! " Myrtle's voice was suddenly stilled. Her father had gathered her up in his strong arms and bore her away from the spot as she sank a dead weight in his embrace. As they disappeared down the moonlit path the man who had been Blanche Vansant's companion re- laxed his hold of her hand and hastened after father and daughter. He saw John Blake reach the highway without, saw him lift his inanimate burden into a carriage in waiting there, and then slowly retraced his way to the spot where he had left Blanche Vansant. Whoever he was, he seemed to have no wish of revealing his true identity for the present, for he kept his face well concealed by the cloak and hat he wore. He found Blanche Vansant standing over the pros- trate form of Percy Grey. Her face was cold and passionless. She did not even start as he came to her side. A slight, sneering laugh broke from his lips as he muttered: " Jealousy seems to have killed love, and my lady is ready for any plot to punish her rival. Good!" and then aloud he remarked, " He seems to be in- sensible?" "Yes." The stranger bent over the prostrate form and felt its pulse. " Only the result of a heavy blow," he said, care- 94 IN THE WHITE MOONLIGHT. lessly, arising to his feet, " and now, madam, you and I have time for a little conversation." Blanche Vansant regarded him coldly. Evidently she had steeled herself to act her most proficient role of queenly dignity and reserve. " Why should we converse together? " she de- manded. " First, because I will it." "You?" "Yes." " And who are you? " " That you shall learn in time, but this much you may know, that I am a very important element in your plans just now. Ah! you start. Nevermind, we will soon come to an understanding. You are probably mystified at my interest in your affairs." "No." "Why not?" " Because, after seeing two people I believed dead return to life, I am prepared for anything." " You are philosophical. Can you as readily accept the results of to-night's disclosures? " " In what way? " " You are not Percy Grey's wife. The ceremony is invalid, for his first wife still lives." Blanche Vansant started as though stung by a serpent. " His real wife is Myrtle Blake, and she is alive. Before Percy Grey recovers, answer me one ques- tion." "What is it?" " If I can show you a way to more effectually separate Percy Grey and his wife than the hatred of John Blake can ever do; if I can show you away to gain a vast fortune by joining me in my plans, what would you say?" " You cannot do it." " If I prove to you that I can, but that it is neces- THE STRICKEN HEART. 95 sary that Percy Grey should disappear from the sight of man to effect it, what then! " The dark siren did not speak. " Remember," whispered the tempter, pressing close to her side, " if you refuse, this man will never be aught to you, and he will certainly again find his wife, despite her mad father. Come, your an- swer? Give up Percy Grey forever, aid me in my plans, and Myrtle Blake shall never see him again, but you shall share a million with me." " I agree." The stranger extended his hand, a demoniac smile on his lips just visible. "Return to the Grey mansion," he said, as he pressed her trembling hand in token of the new compact. " You shall hear from me within an hour." "And Percy Grey?" " Take your last look at him, for his presence is fatal to our plots. Before another dawn Percy Grey will have disappeared from the sight of man as effectually as though the earth had swallowed him up," replied the stranger, impressively. CHAPTER XIII. THE STRICKEN HEART. PITEOUS and pleading sounded the meaning tones of Myrtle Blake's voice; harsh and relent- less was her father's response as, an hour after the scene at the grave, she recovered conscious- ness. He had driven her to the home they had known together for nearly a month a pleasant cottage in the suburbs of the city and had placed her 96 THE STRICKEN HEART. upon a sofa, with brooding mind and anxious glance watching her slow recovery of sensibility. Not a muscle of his white, care-worn face moved as she burst into a torrent of tears. He waited, like some marble nemesis, until the storm of sobs and reproaches had subsided. Then he drew a chair opposite to his own, and pointed to it. " Sit down," he said. " I have something im- portant to say to you." She obeyed him with drooping eyelids and a tear- stained face. A cold despair had chased all the color from her features, and she listened like one in a dream as he spoke. " When, for the first time in long, dreary years, I found you a few weeks agone at a lonely house near the river, whose owner, a simple but kind- hearted man, had rescued you from the river one dark night, I told you the story of my life." Myrtle bowed her head still lower, recalling the events of the night when Blanche Vansant sent her adrift, and Percy Grey believed her to be drowned. " It is marvelous that you should be rescued, for the boat in which you were adrift was run down by a larger craft," continued John Blake. " Still more wonderful was my recovery, when I lay at the very verge of death. In that hour some woman came to me and pretended to be yourself. I trusted her with my papers. She was sent by the Greys I know it. " " No, no, father; or, if even so, my husband was no party to the plot." " They are all alike, all leagued together to crush me and mine and protect themselves," retorted Blake, fiercely. " I recovered and found you; I told you how Ansel Grey had robbed me and sent me to prison on a false charge; I made you prom- ise never, while I lived, to seek Percy Grey again, until I had learned how deep were the plots of old THE STRICKEN HEART. 97 Ansel Grey. I told you that if you went back to him again I would return to prison and voluntarily bear the shame Ansel Grey placed on my name." " Spare me, spare me, father! " pleaded Myrtle, brokenly. " What I said then, I say now," pursued Blake. " I swear to make Ansel Grey suffer hour by hour what he has made me suffer, to bring on all his evil brood the shame and sorrow I have known. Put Percy Grey from your thoughts. You shall never see him again. You wandered to the grave to- night and met him. Meet him again, let one of that accursed race again cross my path, and be- ware! for I will kill them! " John Blake was wildly excited. Myrtle drooped like a blighted rose under his terrible hatred for the family which had so wronged him, but did not dare to reply to him. To her young heart every succeeding step in the strange destiny of her life had brought a new sorrow. Her father believed the imposture of Blanche Vansant, Myrtle's marriage to Percy Grey, all the incidents following the death of her mother, to be part of a systematic plot against them. It was the afternoon after the scene at the ceme- tery that John Blake came home, his bearing more austere than ever, his face set in a stern mask of expression. Myrtle had become used to obey him, and to follow his mandates unquestioningly. When he told her to prepare for a long journey, she started and paled, and seemed about to address him. One glance at the relentless face dissuaded her from her purpose, however, and even when, that evening, a carriage conveyed them to a railroad depot, she did not question him. " It is useless," she murmured to herself. " He Desperate 7. 98 THE STRICKEN HEART. is insane in his thirst for revenge, but he is my father. Oh, Percy, Percy, will the same fate over- take the innocent which threatens the guilty? Will time bring us together again, or will my father's wrongs demand even the sacrifice of our happi- ness? " One hour after the train started, in the state- room compartment he had secured for her, John Blake unfolded his plans. " I sought my vengeance and restitution last night," he said. " I confronted the man who wronged me. I took what was my own, what of his evilly-hoarded wealth he had in sight. Then I gave him until this morning to return dollar for dollar the wealth he robbed me of." A frightened look came into Myrtle's timid eyes, as her father's face glowed with the triumph of his revenge. " He prayed, he cursed, he promised and threat- ened; I was deaf to every entreaty. I showed him the jail that yawned for him for the crime for which he had made me suffer. Then I left him, bidding him prepare for the morning, when all the city should know of Ansel Grey's shame." " Father, father, you are pitiless! " moaned Myr- tle. " The blow that falls on him will crush the loyal heart that loves me." " You mean Percy Grey. Let it. It is my de- sign. All Ansel Grey's evil brood deserve to suffer. They broke your mother's heart; they drove me to jail and you to poverty. But Ansel Grey has escaped me. He left the city this morning, and I am now on his track. I will not rest day or night until I again stand face to face with the man who has so cruelly wronged me and mine." He lapsed into a brief silence, but aroused from his reverie finally, a singular expression in his eyes. " I would spare you what I have to tell you, but THE STRICKEN HEART. 99 that I see your heart goes back to the unworthy object of your love, Percy Grey." " He is not unworthy. " " I shall prove him so, Myrtle. He has deceived you. He, I believe, instigated your death by drowning; he sent the impostor to secure the papers from me." "No, no!" " It is true. If I so prove it; if I further prove that he has disregarded his marriage vows to you has added still deeper wrong to the long list his family has inflicted upon us would you join me in punishing them? Would you say that our vengeance was just?" Myrtle Blake clasped her hands wildly, and turned white as marble. " It cannot be!" she gasped. " Percy Grey is all that is noble and true." "Then read." From his pocket John Blake had drawn a daily paper, and, handing it to his daughter, pointed to two items on its second page. She perused the first one with startled eyes and gasping breath. It read: " GREY-VANSANT. Married, at the residence of Ansel Grey, Esq., by the Rev. Alanson Dorr, Percy Grey to Miss Blanche Vansant." Her heart stood still as her eyes rested on the second item John Blake had indicated. " Mr. and Mrs. Percy Grey," it ran, " left the city to-day on a wedding tour through the Southern States." A film gathered over her eyes; a dull, vague pain shot through her throbbing temples. She wavered unsteadily. Amid her misery she noted not her father's words, breathed fiercely into her ear: IOO THE PLOTTERS. " Revenge, my child; we will live for it, we will die for it. Great heavens! what is this? " Crash ! His words were interrupted suddenly. The car swayed to one side, stopped, fell sideways, and crashed downwards. Amid a grinding, crashing sound, and the shrieks of the affrighted passengers, a sudden pandemonium ensued. Then, as the splintered timbers drove the occu- pants of the coach to pain, and terror, and death, only the horrible hissing of steam at the bottom of a dark abyss told that the night express had gone sheer eighty feet down an open draw. CHAPTER XIV. THE PLOTTERS. EXACTLY one hour after the meeting over the in- sensible form of Percy Grey, struck down by the infuriated John Blake, the stranger who had prom- ised to see Blanche Vansant was at the Grey man- sion. Percy Grey was not with him, however, and he did not seek the siren. He had boldly rang at the door-bell, and, late as the hour was, demanded to see Ansel Grey. Ushered into the library, he found the object of his visit seated at his desk, engaged in looking over some papers, a careworn expression on his aged face. It is not necessary that the interview between the two men should be told in detail. Ansel Grey paled as he recognized the intruder. " You! " he ejaculated. " Earle Townsend! " THE PLOTTERS. IOI " Your scapegrace nephew, exactly," responded the other, coolly appropriating a chair. " No re- proaches, my honorable uncle; I have not come for money this time." " Your robbery nearly ruinedme," groaned Grey. " People with dangerous secrets must pay to have them kept," replied Townsend, lightly; " I came to benefit you. John Blake is alive and at liberty." Ansel Grey's face grew ashen. " Impossible! " he gasped out. " It is true. Uncle, you stand over a mine. If you are wise, you had better not meet that man." In a few words Earle Townsend indicated that he knew all of his uncle's wrong against Blake. For over an hour the two talked together, and Ansel Grey, amid his anxiety, seemed glad to gain as an ally the man who robbed him. They had agreed to form some plan in the morn- ing to outwit Blake, even if it became necessary to remove him from their path effectually; but that very night, as the reader already knows, John Blake visited the mansion. When the morning came, Ansel Grey had fled. It suited Earle Townsend's plans that this should occur. He had remained at the mansion all night, and, descending to the library, was the first to dis- cover a letter in Ansel Grey's handwriting, and directed to Percy Grey. It informed the nephew of all the truth. " Financially ruined, the menace of a dark secret hanging over my life, I am forced to fly," it said. " With the exception of the money in my private desk, I have taken all. It is not much, and even the mansion is sold. Forgive me if I have brought you poverty instead of wealth. I struggled for the latter, and failed." Earle Townsend secured the money spoken of in 102 THE PLOTTERS. the letter. Then he wandered into the drawing- rooms. " All works well," he muttered complacently. " Ha! here is the Vansant woman. Will she fail me?" Blanche Vansant entered the room hurriedly. " Percy! " she cried, in amazement, as.Townsend turned, and then she stood transfixed. Fair in form and feature, so remarkable was the resemblance of Earle Townsend to Percy Grey that the appearance of this man was bewildering to her senses. " Not Percy! " she murmured, gaspingly. " No; but your friend of last night. Miss Van- sant, we understood each other then; let us make no mistake now." "And he Percy?" " I have placed where he will not trouble us again. Think not of the past. It is the present and the future that materially concerns us. Ansel Grey has fled the city." In brief language he related what he knew of that flight. " And now? " inquired the siren. " Now we must act. Within an hour you and I carry out last night's arrangement." "You mean!" " That we leave the house, just as Percy Grey and you were intending to do on your wedding trip. It is necessary to my plans that the impression prevails that you and he left the city this morning." " And when we have done so? " " We remain away for some months, and let the story of Ansel Grey's disappearance die out. He will never return. We will never come back to his broken fortunes, either." " What, then, is the use of all this plotting? " inquired the mystified Blanche, ALONE IN THE WORLD. 10$ "Look well at me." " I am doing so." " Do I resemble Percy Grey? " " Yes like as a brother." " And to people who had not seen him for years, might pass for him? " "Yes, yes." " Very well. I intend to tell you a secret." "What is it?" " Percy Grey's uncle, in another city, Samuel Townsend, died two days since." "Well?" " He left a fortune amounting to over a million of dollars in money." " I begin to understand," murmured the siren, tumultuously. " And the sole heir to that princely estate," con- cluded Townsend, deliberately, " is Percy Grey! " CHAPTER XV. ALONE IN THE WORLD. ONE dark, cheerless night, exactly one year after the occurrence of the events which culminated in the weird scene at the river, in which Myrtle Blake was supposed to have been drowned, a lonely, friendless woman wandered the streets of the great thriving city of Cincinnati, hopeless, despairing, almost heart-broken. Dusk, coming down in somber mantle of gray, had witnessed ineffectual, though continued efforts on her part to secure work at this and that great factory and store. The dashing lights of the glow- ing night only increased the mockery of warmth and cheerfulness as she struggled on, and, at last, too 104 ALONE IN THE WORLD. weary to go farther, sank to a bench for rest in one of the central parks of the city. Pedestrians passing to and fro gazed curiously but carelessly at the veiled figure, graceful and youthful even amid its pose of wearied exhaustion. How little they realized the misery and grief that dwelt within that forlorn breast! how little they dreamed of the tragic fate this lone creature had known! how little she herself knew of the por- tentous future that very night's slow developments were destined to usher in! "Weary! oh, so weary," came in a low moan from behind the veil. " I have wandered the streets for hours seeking work and finding none. It seems as if every human heart and home are closed against me; as if some cruel fate pursues me with grim poverty and want, to drive me to despair at every hand." She arose to her feet as a hand touched her roughly on the shoulder. Looking up she shuddered and shrank back as she discerned that a uniformed guardian of the law confronted her. " You will have to move on here," a gruff voice spoke, and a vision of the horrors of police surveil- lance and confinement drove the woman to her feet. Was there rest for her nowhere no pity in the human heart for her utter friendlessness? She staggered from sheer weakness, as she essayed to leave the spot, and a bitter moan escaped her lips. She started, and then came to a standstill at the stone parapet of a great bridge. Her heart thrilled, as she looked far down at the darkly-gleaming waters, a mocking demon seeming to beckon her to rest and respite from all her earthly cares, " Not that! not that! " she gasped. " Oh, Father in Heaven, help and guide me, in my dire extremity." ALONE IN THE WORLD. IO$ The prayer, so fervent, so pitiful, seemed to give her renewed strength. At that moment a fitful gust of wind, chill and searching from the river, blew aside her veil. Myrtle Blake! Yes, the Cinderella of old, the convict's daughter, the dreaded rival of the dark siren, Blanche Van- sant ; the beautiful persecuted bride of Percy Grey! If those pallid lips could have spoken in tones of confidence and relief to some cherished friend, what a story of tragic, plotful detail could they have told! For this woman, the child of stormy destiny, a veritable football of fate, had an experience so strange, so appalling, that she herself scarcely realized its developments. On the very verge of a terrible manifestation of a deep plot, or the utter faithlessness of the man she loved, a catastrophe had occurred which for weeks deprived her of sensibility and thought. When that awful crash on the railroad came, a score of suffering human beings were buried amid the burning wreck. Myrtle Blake was rescued and conveyed to a farm-house near at hand, where she lay hovering between life and death for many days. When she had finally recovered, it was to awaken to a new grief. Her father's body had not been identified, but there seemed to be no doubt but that his was one of the charred remains found beneath the ashes of the destroyed coach. Through all the gradations of intense sorrow and despair the orphaned Cinderella passed. Finally she returned to Chicago. Her trusting heart bade her hope that Percy Grey had not proven untrue to her, that her father had been deceived. The ban of his revenge removed by death, she longed to see the man she loved once again. 106 ALONE IN THE WORLD. If false the bitter thought chilled her to the heart then justice at least demanded from his family restitution for the wrong Ansel Grey had done her father. But she found no trace of nephew or uncle. Ansel Grey had disappeared ; Percy Grey could not be traced. The old mansion was occupied by strangers, and the servants of the Grey household were scattered. It was fate that here her inquiries terminated. With means at her command, she could have learned what time had effaced from casual memory that Percy Grey was credited with having wed and left the city with Blanche Vansant the night she had last seen him. Their wedding had been so hurried that, only for the newspaper announcement, the outside pub- lic knew nothing of the affair. Myrtle did not even hear that marriage referred to by those she questioned about the Grey family. " It was a plot, a falsehood," she cheated herself into believing ; " but where is he my Percy, my husband?" A half-formed plan to pursue her inquiries farther was suddenly dissipated by the needs of the hour. She was compelled to seek work, to return to the slavery and drudgery of poorly- compensated toil, amid which she sank into a kind of despairing resignation to the issues of fate. At last, even the work failed. One day she imagined she was followed to her lodgings by a stranger, and that evening she thought she saw him conversing near her home with a man re- sembling Bryce Williard. The old terror of evil plots and wicked schemes came over her, and she fled the city where she had known so much misery. Thus it was that on the dark, cheerless night ALONE IN THE WORLD. IO/ described, we find her a homeless wanderer in the streets of a great city totally unfamiliar to her. She had turned from the river with a shudder of horror, and the emotion awakened her to the realities of life. At a lamp-post she paused, and drew a folded paper from her pocket. " It seems almost useless to seek," she sighed. " I have already gone to four places where they have advertised for help, only to find the positions filled, or myself not qualified to undertake the duties required. I will try once more. If I fail, I can only find some quiet spot and die." She had not exaggerated her condition of utter poverty and distress, and it was almost hopelessly that she glanced over the " wants " column of an evening paper she had secured. At last she came across an advertisement for a housekeeper, which, despite her youth and inex- perience, she believed she could fill acceptably. The place of application named was in the resi- dence portion of the city. An inquiry from a passer- by revealed the fact that it was a long distance, but she did not falter. A forlorn hope, she de- termined to pursue it to the end. Her head was dizzy and confused, her steps slow and dragging, as at last she reached the avenue in- dicated in the advertisement. It was a thoroughfare lined with beautiful houses and stately mansions. As she observed the num- bers of the houses to guide her to her destination, the cozy warmth and elegance presented to her eye only made her own condition, by contrast, more miserable. At last she paused before a great frowning brown- stone structure, more magnificent, if possible, than any one she had yet passed. " This is the house," she murmured, as she glanced IO8 ALONE IN THE WORLD. up the carved steps, and at the number on the outer door. She hesitated with a sinking emotion at heart, and glanced at her thin, bedraggled dress, and real- ized how pale and woe-begone must be her face. What chance for employment had she in that elegant palace, shabbily attired and unrecommend- ed? " I will try, at least," she breathed intensely. " The splendor repels me. I may fail, but here the hopes and struggle of the night must end." She ascended the steps slowly, a growing oppres- sion at mind. Her hand touched the bell-knob and fell motionless at her side, as if struck by an elec- tric shock. For at that moment a gleam from the street-lamp before the house fell distinctly across the silvered door-plate. Upon that plate her staring eyes were riveted. Transfixed with emotions that seemed to over- whelm her, Myrtle Blake could only read and re- read the letters it bore. For the name engraved thereon, plainly visible to her amazed sight, was " Percy Grey." DISOWNED. 109 CHAPTER XVI. DISOWNED. " I HAVE found him at last! " Myrtle Blake gasped forth the words tumultu- ously, her whole being sentient with thrilling emo- tion, her impressive nature alive only- to the great staring fact that confronted her. " Percy Grey Percy Grey! " she repeated over and over to herself, her eyes fixed on the silver door-plate. " It can be no coincidence. It is he! it is he my Percy, my husband! He will explain all. Oh! blessed accident that brought me to this house to-night! " Her trusting, womanly heart never doubted the fidelity of the man she loved at that moment. All the clouds of the past seemed to disappear, confi- dence and hope revived, and without pausing to analyze her varied emotions Myrtle Blake seized the bell-knob. A loud peal rang through the house. The rich stained-glass door of the vestibule opened, and a servant a man stood upon its threshold. His glance swept Myrtle critically. His keen eye seemed to read in her ordinary attire and tremb- ling, eager manner, the pose of a mendicant. " What do you want? " he demanded, harshly. She could scarcely speak for excitement and emotion. It was well that her veil shadowed her face, or her unnaturally pale features and glittering eyes would have startled the man. " Mr. Grey, Mr. Percy Grey! " she gasped out. " Yes; well, he resides here." "I I wish to see him. I came to to " Her lips dropped to silence. What in sympathy with her heart-thrilling emotions had this hard- visaged man how could she frame the words 1 10 DISOWNED. that, betraying her identity and mission, might not be timely until she had seen Percy Grey? " There was an advertisement " she said, quickly resorting to a ruse to gain admittance. " You mean for a housekeeper?" "Yes yes." " Oh, that was filled hours ago," carelessly spoke the man. He had half-closed the door. Myrtle was fran- tic in her helplessness. " One moment, please," she cried. " It was not about the advertisement. I must see Mr. Grey personally, at once." " He isn't home. Come in the morning. Drat these beggars; they don't know what they want," he muttered, and deliberately closed the door in Myrtle's face. She recoiled as though dealt a blow. Her over- wrought mind dictated a mild effort to insist on ad- mittance, to demand shelter beneath the roof of her legally wedded husband. But suffering had taught her patience, and Myrtle retraced her way down the steps, and walked beyond the mansion. "I must wait," she murmured, anxiously. "I must wait until he returns. Oh, he will explain all his disappearance this new home here! Yes, yes, I must be patient until I have seen him." Beyond the radius of the street-lamp's glare she stood, her eyes fixed on the mansion, counting the slow minutes, consumed with emotions that surged through her soul with the force of a rushing torrent. She riveted her gaze on a carriage with two superb steeds, in charge of a liveried coachman, which drove in front of the mansion a moment later. Then her eyes wandered to the mansion itself expectantly. A quick, vague, jealous emotion covered her heart as, across the light at the upper DISOWNED. Ill windows, a woman's form flitted momentarily, but she repressed all thoughts save those inspired by utter suspense and hopefulness, as the front door of the mansion opened, and a man's form ran lightly down the steps. A fugitive ray of light from the mansion itself for a moment plainly outlined the figure. Myrtle Blake staggered and gasped wildly: "It is he!" Conviction, hope, dread were in her tones. To her vision, after the lapse of years, once again the lithe active form of Percy Grey was revealed. The face she had not seen distinctly, except as to contour and at a distance. One mighty impulse swayed her being, and she dashed impetuously toward the carriage. She had flung aside her veil now, her face like marble, her eyes aglow with excitement, her hand touching that of the coachman, just closing the carriage-door. " Mr. Grey! " she grasped forth. " I wish to see him." "What is it?" The occupant of the vehicle leaned towards the open door. " Percy, my husband, do you not know me? " She had caught a full view of his face now. Darker, older than before, his features were those of the husband she had loved and lost. In utter amazement the coachman gazed at the strange woman who thus addressed his master. The master himself had started forward at hearing her so familiarly speak his name. A stern yet apprehensive look flitted over his countenance. " Woman, who are you?" he demanded. The words repelled her. 112 FACE TO FACE. " I am your wife Myrtle. Do you not know me your Cinderella? " " Close the door, woman. I do not know you." An awful cry surged to Myrtle's lips. Through the opened window of the carriage she saw the man's face turn white as her own, heard him mutter wildly under his breath, and yet he had disowned her. " Wait only one moment," she pleaded; " I have changed, and you do not recognize me. Percy! Percy! " " Drive on." She clung to the carriage frantically, but her grasp was torn loose as the vehicle started up. Then she fell. Brushed to the street itself, the man to whom she had appealed noting not, caring not, that the wheels grazed her form, that she had fallen upon the stone curb, Myrtle Blake, her brain on fire, her heart burned to stone, lay like one dead, almost at the very portals of the stately mansion which was the home of Percy Grey. CHAPTER XVII. FACE TO FACE. LIFE was a blank, returning sensibility a trance, to Myrtle Blake for the half hour following the episode of the carriage. In falling her head had struck the stone curb, in- flicting a wound that stained her face with blood, confusing her mind even after she had struggled to her feet and reeled blindly down the street. At last she sank to some stone steps, and, her head bent upon her hands, endeavored to realize her situation. FACE TO FACE. 113 Fate's last cruel blow had stunned her. Percy Grey had seen her, Percy Grey had heard her name, and yet he had denied knowing her, had cruelly thrust her aside, as though she was a stranger. " What does it mean? Is all this some horrible vision?" she moaned in anguish. " No, no; it was he; it was his voice, harder and harsher; his face, less gentle than of old. Oh! he shall see me he shall tell me why he repels me! " A wild impulse drove her to her feet. She wiped the blood from her face with her handker- chief. She summoned all her courage to act determinedly and promptly, and retrace her way to the mansion. This time, as she rang at the- door-bell, a girl answered her summons. " Mr. Grey has not returned?" she asked in a tone of forced calmness. The servant replied in the negative. " I wish to wait for him, then, or to leave a note. My business is imperative." " Step this way, madam." Something in the decided tones of the veiled visitor impressed the girl with the belief that she was in earnest, and determined to carry out her expressed wishes. Over a heavy velvet carpet, sinking soft and warm to her tired feet, Myrtle followed the servant to a room at the end of the hall. It was the library of the mansion, and, draw- ing a chair before the blazing grate, the girl said: " You can wait until I rind out when Mr. Grey will be at home, or you can write at the desk there, madam." The visitor bowed silently. For a moment the sense of warmth and comfort, after the stormy ex- perience of the night, made a dreamy drowsiness steal over frame and spirit. Desperate 8. 114 FACE TO FACE. " Kis home, his pictures," murmured Myrtle, as she glanced around the elegantly appointed room. " Oh, there must be some mistake, some mystery about all this. He loved me, he loved me; he cannot be cruel when he knows all. What is that? " Her eyes, scanning a portrait on the mantel, became fixed on a companion picture by its side. The one was a perfect counterfeit presentment of Percy Grey, the other Where had she seen that face before? Some- where in the dim past it had crossed her vision, and one wild throb thrilled her soul as she read, traced across its lower edge, the name " Blanche." It seemed to mock her, that dark, handsome face so serene and defiant. " If it should be that he is false, that this woman fills his heart!" gasped Myrtle, a flash of jealousy in her eyes, a remembrance of her father's vengeful words in her mind. " No! no " " You wished to see Mr. Grey?" A musical voice had broken upon her soliloquy. She turned, startled. Before her, radiant in jewels and silks, stood the original of the picture on the mantel Blanche Vansant. Her heart seemed to stand still as, in the self- possessed woman before her, she recognized neither servant nor dependent in the household. Still she managed to stammer out: " Yes, I wished to see him on some important business." " He will not be at home for some time. Will you state your business to me? I am Mrs. Grey." A wild cry rang from Myrtle Blake's lips. " You are Mrs. Grey!" she gasped out, confront- ing the other with an excitement of manner so intense that Blanche Vansant recoiled startled. THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. 11$ " Yes, madam; and I am at a loss to understand your manner or mission here." In a flash, as the possible perfidy of the man she loved came to her mind, and as a rankling sense of suffering and wrong tortured her soul to anguish, Myrtle Blake became transformed. She tore aside her veil, and with clinched hands stood face to face with the mistress of the mansion. " It is false!" she cried, in wringing tones; " I am Percy Grey's legally- wedded wife!" With a cry of mingled dismay and amazement Blanche Vansant reeled to a chair for support. " Merciful Heavens!" fell from her pallid lips; " it is Myrtle Blake Cinderella!" CHAPTER XVIII. THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. FOR one quivering moment of time Blanche Vansant sat staring blankly at the woman before her. At an unexpected crisis, amid all her dark plots, she had been confronted with a terrible surprise, and for once in her life the dusky siren quailed, and was dumbfounded. Her eye, quick and penetrating, that had closely scrutinized the worn, bedraggled garments of her visitor, now discerned the pallor and wretchedness of the face so suddenly and startingly revealed to view. From those features, ordinarily so gentle and shrinking, there flashed forth the resolution and defiance of a crushed soul at last arousing to terrible energy. The stern, accusing glance of Myrtle Blake never wandered from the countenance of the other. But Il6 THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. she did not speak. In that moment of supreme emotion, she only seemed to think as in a dream. Like a flash there seemed awakened in her soul the fiercest determination to fight for her rights; to maintain before this dark schemer the claim she had made, be Percy Grey perfidious and cruel as he might. Succeeding to amazement and terror in the heart of Blanche Vansant, came the warning promptings of prudence and intrigue. The mask went up under her superb self-control. With a powerful effort she regained her usual bold- ness and force of manner and voice. " A wrong move and we are lost!" she murmured, in an intense tone of voice, and then, so abruptly that Myrtle was startled, she arose to her feet, and, with a glance of infinite disdain at her visitor, swept to the door of the library. " Madame, you leave me after what I have told you? " began Myrtle. " Yes," came the measured, hissing reply, " to summon the servants to turn you from the house!" " You would dare " " Anything, against an impostor." " I am no impostor. Stay! " cried Myrtle, her soul's indignation expressed in her thrilling tones. " If you wish to learn " " Nothing," came the icv interruption. " Yours is not the first absurd claim made to wring money by blackmail. Leave this house if you are wise, or the police shall remove you." " Stop! Be warned, once for all. You had bet- ter listen to me! " cried Myrtle, her words quiver- ing with wild menace. " I am no impostor. I am Percy Grey's wife. I can read your vain dissimu- lation, for you know me you, Blanche Vansant, who robbed my father when you thought him dying. Ah! you pale now, madame! Your crime is known. THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. 1 1/ A vengeance is approaching. Turn me from this roof until I see my husband, the man you claim as yours, and see what a desperate woman will do! " The siren paused. " You are either some reckless impostor, or mad," she said, maintaining the original role she had assumed. " I am neither, but a wronged, persecuted woman, determined to claim her rights, the more so when intrigue and cruelty seek to rob me of my fair name and the man I love, madame. There is some mystery surrounding this mansion and its in- mates that I am determined to learn. You may affect ignorance of it and of me, and yet your words, when I startled you by revealing myself, show that you know me." " I will listen no longer to your preposterous claims," responded Blanche, contemptuously. " I am Mrs. Percy Grey. My husband and I never saw you before. In the face of that denial, what will you produce to overcome the influence of our wealth and our statements? " "Proofs!" It was the triumphant cry of a soul desperate and determined. Blanche Vansant trembled slightly. " Proofs? " she repeated, in a husky tone. " You have none." " Have I not? Wait. Not to you, because to me you are naught, but to Percy Grey, true or false, I will show the written, undeniable proofs that he is my husband, and dares not deny it. He will not oh! he will not, when I tell him all. By what power you hold him I know not, except that it be evil and perfidious." " We shall see," hbsed the siren, maddened at the bold words of the woman she had believed she could crush with a look. " Aye ! we shall see. I came to this mansion a Il8 THE FALCON AND THE DOVE. trembling, hopeless creature. I am here now, a woman aroused fully to battle for her rights if wrong has been done to unmask intrigue and crime if such have been attempted. " " Merciful heavens! " murmured Blanche, wildly, " does she suspect our real secret can she know .the true identity of " The bell rang with an echoing peal at that mo- ment. " It is he," murmured Blanche, in an intense tone. Her basilisk glance rested on Myrtle's face as she spoke. The latter had grown pale and agitated. " It is Percy Grey," she said. " There is that in yonder face that tells me you would prevent my meeting him if you could, but you shall not." "Silence! he is coming here. You shall have your wish you shall see him." Myrtle Blake arose to her feet, her lips parted, her heart beating wildly. The moment of her destiny had come. Here the man she sought could not evade her he must listen to her. The other, watching her with jealous, devour- ing glance, counted the footsteps in the hall with- out, momentarily approaching the library. " If I could warn him ! " she murmured , anxiously. A low moan diverted her from her intention of reaching the door, to prepare the new-comer for the surprise that awaited him. She saw Myrtle Blake reel where she stood, and saw her pallor increase, and then she sank to the floor an inert mass. " She has fainted," breathed the siren, in satis- fied tones. " Good! it will give us time to think and act. " It was true. At the throbbing, suspenseful mo- ment when the crisis had come, and all her strength was needed to combat wily foes, poor Myrtle had UNMASKED. 1 19 gone down under the terrible strain of the excite- ment of the hour. The knob of the library door turned as Blanche Vansant crossed the room toward it. On the threshold stood the man of the carriage, the man Myrtle had vainly appealed to as her hus- band as Percy Grey. Her finger on her lips, Blanche Vansant made a warning gesture of silence. The man regarded her with a mystified look, not noticing the prostrate form behind her. Softly closing the door behind him, she spoke in a low, rapid tone: " There is no need of alarming the servants," she said. " What do you mean? " " I was afraid if I did not prepare you for a sur- prise, you might cry out." "What surprise? " " This," replied Blanche, pointing to the insensi- ble Myrtle. " Mrs. Percy Grey is here." CHAPTER XIX. UNMASKED. THE man recoiled with a shock, as his glance rested on Myrtle Blake. Then a deep scowl crossed his face. " How did she come here? " he demanded. " You know who she is you realize what disaster her appearance may mean to us?" "Fully." " And yet you ask coolly and quietly how she came here. Are you not amazed, dumbfounded? " "No." " Then you expected it? " I2O UNMASKED. " Yes, for I saw her once before." " When? " " An hour since. Ring for the servants." His face had grown hard, and the cruel gleam in his eye told of some fixed determination. Elanche Vansant regarded him in some wonder. " What are you going to do? " she asked. " Turn this woman from the house, brand her as an impostor, crush her at the very outset of her bold claim." " Are you mad? " " No. When to-night she came to the carriage and called me Percy husband, I was startled, but I acted defiantly, boldly. I drove on as if she was exactly what I claimed an impostor. " You forget what she knows." " I forget nothing. By accident she has found us. She is friendless and poor." " Her father " began Blanche, with a slight shudder. " Is dead, even as we believed her to be. No, Blanche, we have almost accomplished our schemes another month and the actual fortune of Samuel Towner is ours. Let us act boldly, defiantly. To falter, or compromise, or complicate, might ruin all. This woman and her claim we will ignore. Who will believe her claim, that she is the wife of Percy Gray? " " Everybody, if what she says is true." "What?" " That she has the proofs to support her claim." The man started violently. " It cannot be," he murmured concernedly. " You told me she was a gentle, shrinking child." " Whom time and suffering have developed into a desperate, determined woman dangerous to our every plan," interrupted Blanche, bitterly. UNMASKED. 121 " You told me to never fear that wild wedding at the river." " I did not know all then. She defies us with proofs. Turn her from here and all is ruined." Under the influence of her words, the man looked concerned. " What would you have me do?" he demanded, anxiously. Blanche Vansant's eyes darted a glance of hatred at the silent form on the floor. She drew nearer to her companion, a vengeful glow on her face. " I would have you secure at last the fortune we have plotted for so long." " It will be ours in less than a month." " Not if this woman has her freedom." " Ha, you mean " " That her liberty, now that she has discovered you, means a terrible menace to our schemes." She spoke rapidly, vengefully. The man by her side trembled visibly at the dark hint her words and manner conveyed. " You would imprison her you would keep her here?" " No." "What then?" " The other disappeared. Have you lost your cunning and boldness? Look! she is helpless and at our mercy." " But she may have friends outside." " We must risk that." " And the servants? " " Know nothing, except that a strange woman called to see you to-night." The man shuddered. He felt the dark, witching eyes of the siren fixed on his face, reading its every expression. He knew that her crafty soul, in hinting at 122 UNMASKED. " disappearance," suggested a deeper crime, if necessary, to protect their mutual interests. " It shall be as you say," he finally spoke. " This woman could disturb our plans if she is armed with proofs of the past." " She boasted of it." " There is but one way." "Well?" " The secret passage rarely used to the rear building, where Samuel Towner had his labora- tory." "Yes, I know of it." " We must convey this woman there." " And then ? " " Decide .whether we shall hold her a prisoner until our plans are accomplished." He hesitated. " Or cause her to disappear effectually," supple- mented the woman impatiently. " Come, are you a coward, to shrink when vital interests are at stake?" " Percy! " They started as, soft and sighing as a summer zephyr, the word was breathed on the still air of the library. Both turned quickly. The form on the floor moved slightly. " She is recovering consciousness. We must remove her hence," said Blanche. " It is too late. She is opening her eyes. Con- ceal yourself. " " And you? " " Will learn how much we have to fear from this woman." Myrtle Blake had come back to sensibility with the name of the man she loved quivering on her lips. She looked around her with a dazed, confused UNMASKED. 123 stare, and then slowly struggling to her feet, stag- gered toward a chair. Half way across the room she came to an abrupt halt. " Percy! " she gasped out wildly. For before her, his arms folded across his breast, regarding her fixedly, coldly, was the man she had so vainly appealed to once before that night. The full glare of the chandelier fell across his features. The effect produced seemed to transfix her. With parted lips and bated breath, Myrtle stood for the space of a moment, devouring that false, handsome face, as if reading thereon the every thought of his treacherous mind. What was it that repelled her? What flash of sentient thought, of womanly instinct, drove all the pleading, passionate warmth from her eyes, and supplanted it with a terrified, suspicious expres- sion? " You have called my name. Well, woman, what is it? " He spoke with studied coldness of manner; his eye never quailed at the growing menace of bold- ness in her own. " A single question," came slowly, huskily, from her lips. " You are the proprietor of this man- sion? " " Percy Grey, yes." " And the woman I have seen here is your wife? " " She is. You have terrified her, as you have amazed me, with your audacious claims to-night. Whoever you are " " You are sure you do not know me? " What was in the tones of this woman, so changed from her former pleading accents, that made the man vaguely uneasy? " No, I have never seen you before. I cannot imagine who you are. " 124 UNMASKED. "It is false!" Myrtle Blake uttered the words in a tone that was steady, and firm, and defiant. " It is false," she repeated, slowly; " for you know that I am Percy Grey's wife. " "Your proofs?" " Are not for your inspection and control." " For whose, then? " " For justice, for the law. Man, you have un- masked yourself! In your false face I see what my blinded love at first concealed. If you should say to me this hour that you acknowledged me as your wife, that this princely home was mine, this should be my answer. " She was grandly eloquent in gesture and word. With a sudden spring she gained the bell-rope. The noisy clangor of bells echoed through the mansion. The man, and even Blanche Vansant, secreted behind a curtain in an alcove, were amazed more, alarmed at the strange movement. " Woman, what do you mean? " demanded the former bewilderingly. " To call the servants. " " And why? " " To unmask you and your vile accomplice. I have read your secret. My triumph has come. " " We are lost! " murmured the trembling Blanche from her concealment. " For," continued Myrtle, with flashing eyes, " I know all at last. You are not Percy Grey! " " Discovered!" The word was fairly hissed forth by the man as he recoiled, pale and alarmed. "They are coming the servants; they shall know all! " cried Myrtle, wildly excited. " Impos- DARK WORK. 12$ tor, murderer, to the world you shall tell what you have done with the man whose name and fortune you have stolen my husband Percy Grey! " CHAPTER XX. DARK WORK. UNMASKED, denounced, the man Myrtle Blake had at first believed to be Percy Grey stood dumb- founded for the moment at her thrilling denunci- ation and prompt action. The suddenness of the denouement to the scene in which he had affected to be the cold, indignant man of wealth treating with an impostor, had robbed him temporarily of motion. Spellbound he stood staring at that wraith from the past who, in reviving its horrors and crimes by her presence, also menaced all the hopes and schemes of his future. " Fool! would you allow her to spoil all? " Blanche Vansant, hissing the words malignantly, had sprang into view. Myrtle Blake, her eyes flashing, her face aglow with excitement and emotion, stood throbbing and defiant, the bell-rope still in her hand. Steps, in answer to her summons, were echoing in the hall without. With a spring, the siren reached Myrtle's side. She had taken from her pocket her handkerchief, and with it a phial containing some subtle anaes- thetic, for its fumes pervaded her. Before Myrtle could realize it, she had seized her around the neck. With all her tiger-like strength, she pressed the handkerchief to her face, meanwhile holding her in a close grasp. A cry of alarm gurgled in Myrtle's throat, her 126 DARK WORK. eyes closed, she gasped painfully, and then sank in- sensible to the carpet. " The door, quick! " ordered Blanche. The man obeyed her, and met the curious, peer- ing servant with a careless explanation of the false call. His brow was dark, his face pallid, as he locked the door and turned to Blanche. " This is bad work," he muttered. " Why so? " she demanded, coolly. " The servants." " They suspect? " " How can they help it? The coachman heard this woman's claim, and the servant who admitted her must suspect something." "Well, what of it?" This, that I saw from the maid's face at the door just now that she is curious over these strange oc- currences. Should they have overheard us, danger- ous gossip would ensue." " It is to their interest to remain silent." " Not if we have an enemy among them. " Blanche started violently. " You mean " " That such might be the case. We cannot be too careful. You say you believe Bryce Williard has escaped jail? " "Yes." " Once he learns that your treachery sent him there, he will be an implacable foe. He is alert and shrewd, and if he learned the truth " " How can he? " " How could this woman? You say I resemble Percy Grey? " " You are his counterpart." " And yet this woman, his wife, pierced the mask. Suppose she was free to pursue her investigations, DARK WORK. and I was revealed as Earle Towner, the false heir to Samuel Towner's estate? " " She must not be." " That is true; but if the eyes of love tore aside the mask, may not the deeper-sear hing quest of hate also accomplish it? Once unmasked to the world, for you and me the prison yawns. When we fled from Chicago, personating Grey and his wife, I wedded you; I offered to share the perils and profits of this scheme. Percy Grey disap- peared." " And you took his place? " " Yes. I was accepted as the real heir. I was placed in possession of this mansion; but here, after all this time, when within a single month this vast fortune will have been turned into ready cash, this unforeseen menace threatens it. How do we know but that this woman has friends outside; that even Bryce Williard, burning with revenge, may be in league with her?" Blanche Vansant's brow darkened, but her face was resolute. " That is scarcely probable; we will deal with facts as they assail us. If Bryce Williard reveals himself, we must do with him as with this first enemy to cross our path crush him. " The ferocity of the woman's manner made her ac- complice shudder. " Come," she went on; "this woman must be removed. " " Whither?" " As we originally designed, to the laboratory. How you tremble! You must not falter now. If we can maintain the imposture you have kept up so long a few weeks longer, we will be ready then to fly at any moment when trouble comes, with the fortune we have plotted for. " Her words seemed to infuse new energy and 128 DARK WORK. courage into the wavering soul of her accom- plice. " What is a life more or less? " he muttered; " but you forget one thing. " " What is that? "spoke Blanche, inquiringly. " This woman the servants know she is here." " That is true. " " They will be watching for her departure. I know their prying, inquisitive nature." . " Well?" " Should she disappear, as we propose, they might suspect." " I will provide for all that." " How?" Blanche kneeled beside the prostrate Myrtle, and began removing her bonnet and shawl. These she at once donned, drawing the veil over her face. Then, secreting a light hood of her own under the shawl, she said: " I am ready. You will let me out, and I will return stealthily in a little while. The servants will recognize these garments as those of our vis- itor, and will believe she has left the house." The precaution was a prudent one for the plotters, for, as the pretended Percy Grey accompanied the disguised Blanche to the door, a curious face, that of a servant, peered from the upper staircase. The man returned to the library, relocked the door, and then proceeded to an alcove, where he drew a curtain aside, revealing a small door set in the wall. This he unlocked, and taking a small hand-lamp from a recess, lit it, and entered a dark, narrow passage-way. It led to a small structure in the rear of the mansion, which had been built by its former master, Samuel Towner, who made a hobby of experi- mental chemistry. A NEW MENACE. 129 The passage-way terminated at another door, which he unlocked, and setting the lamp inside a large apartment, retraced his way to the library. " The upper room in the laboratory has only one window, and that is barred, and a stout door. I will secure this woman there until we can decide what to do." He lifted the limp, senseless form of poor Myrtle Grey in his arms as he spoke, and bore her rapidly down the passage-way to the laboratory, which was to be her prison, or her tomb, according as the heartless caprice of Blanche Vansant decided. CHAPTER XXI. A NEW MENACE. THE daring adventuress who was the wife and accomplice of the false Percy Grey, of the real Earle Towner, fulfilled the part she had assumed, and passed down the steps of the mansion, a per- fect counterpart of the crushed, homeless creature whose identity she had temporarily stolen. There were mingled emotions in her heart as in a flash she comprehended all that had occurred, and determined not to waver in the plot under play. She was jealous of Myrtle Blake, although she, Blanche, had connived at the disappearance and even the death of the man they mutually loved. She feared her as she realized how a word spoken on the outside regarding Earle Towner would destroy their most cherished plans. " She must die! " hissed the woman in an intense tone. " I will go out of sight of the house to carry out the farce I am playing, and then, discarding these rags, assume my own garb hidden under Desperate 9. 130 A NEW MENACE. them, and return to the mansion. Then Earle Towner must not falter in removing this dangerous enemy from our path." She paused abruptly as a quick footstep sounded behind her, and the next moment a strong hand touched her arm. " What do you want who are you " Then, as her eyes pierced the veil, and surveyed the face of the man she had addressed, her lips seemed frozen to silence. " I am your friend. Do not shrink nor become alarmed, Myrtle. I have followed you; I saw you enter yonder house. I wish to tell you that I am your friend, and although we have not met before since that unfortunate night when you were sup- posed to be drowned " "Stop!" Blanche Vansant had found power to speak and act at last. " Bryce Williard! " she gasped out. Then she had darted from the spot, bent only on escaping the man she had so basely betrayed in the past ere he recognized her. But he was as quick as herself. Before she had proceeded a dozen steps he was up with her; his hand seized her veil; it fell aside. The street-lamp fell across that false, beautiful face, plainly revealing its well-known features to her pursuer. " Blanche Vansant! " he cried. " Ah, then, we meet at last." His manner had changed suddenly, ominously. He drew back as if no longer fearful of her flight. His hands clinched slowly, his eyes blazed like fire, while over his sinister face there came a deep- ening scowl that was dark as hate. Evidently he had never dreamed of this surprise, and yet its occurrence appeared to absorb his A NEW MENACE. 1 31 mind, even to the exclusion of all thoughts tem- porarily of the woman he had judged her to be. Deathly pale, Blanche recoiled from the hiss- ing, venomous words the condemning, rage-filled glance. "Traitress, thief, murderess!" fell slowly, ter- ribly from Williard's lips; " at last we meet again. Ah! you thought to escape me you, who re- ceived in trust my money, only to appropriate it; you, who inveigled me into a meeting with your- self, only to betray me basely to the officer of the law. But I have traced you down! There is a deep score for you and me to settle, a deadly vengeance I have sworn to execute against you and yours." "I never betrayed you your money I can return to you," panted the woman, shuddering under the man's scathing words. "It is false! Stop; make no movement to leave me, or you will regret it." " But there is some one coming. I will not be seen here. Let me go, I tell you, or I will shriek for help, and denounce you as the criminal and escaped convict that you are. " A harsh, unnatural laugh met her words. " Do it! " cried Williard, tauntingly. " Do it now and at once, and see what I in return will do. Tell the world who I am, and send me back to jail, and you and your scheming accomplice, Earle Towner, shall join me there." " Merciful heavens! he knows all. We are lost," murmured Blanche Vansant, hoarsely. Her companion observed her emotion. "Ah!" he cried triumphantly, "you falter and tremble at last. I have not been watching in vain. I know all your secrets. But on that score enough for the present. My interest is deeper than that. I saw a woman enter the mansion you call home, 132 A NEW MENACE. She has not left it. Where is she. What have you done with Myrtle Blake?" There was no use of denial. The woman saw it in Williard's menacing glance. " She left the house half an hour ago." 11 How?" " By a rear entrance." " Then why are you wearing her bonnet and shawl?" Blanche started and did not reply. The full peril of her position, the fierce perti- nacity of this man, terrified her. But a covert gleam of treacherous malice flashed in her eyes as she divined a means of leading this dangerous enemy into a trap. " Why do you wish to know of Myrtle Blake? " she demanded. " Because the old love for her is not dead ; because I would save her from your plots by making her my wife." " He does not know all, then," whispered the siren tumultuously to herself. " He believes Percy Grey dead." And then aloud she said: "You wish to see Myrtle Blake? " "I will see her." The woman laid her hand on Williard's arm. All the deft dissimulation of a wily actress was called to her command now. " Bryce Williard," she said softly, " when you know all, you will see how foolish it is for us to quarrel." He shook off her hand with an impatient gesture, but she saw that her artifice had affected him with the influence of her old dominant power over him. " There is a fortune to share," she went on, " or to lose. Come, be reasonable, and forget the past." A NEW MENACE. 133 " Myrtle where is she? We waste time." " As fully as you defy me in threatening to de- stroy our schemes, I defy you, then! " cried Blanche, with assumed anger. " You shall never see Myrtle Blake again, unless I will it." Her words seemed to impress the man, for he was silent. " Agree to talk with me, not here, not now, but soon, and where we will not be overheard, and to combine with me to carry out a plot involving a fortune, and I will lead you to Myrtle Blake. " I agree." It seemed that his interest in Myrtle Blake super- seded the vengeful impulses of his nature, for amid his eagerness to regain her he did not notice the covert gleam of murderous hate and satisfaction in Blanche Vansant's eyes. " Come, then," she said simply. "Where?" " To a spot where we can converse uninter- ruptedly." " And Myrtle Blake? " "You shall see her within the hour." " She is in the mansion?" " She is a prisoner where you cannot find her, unless I will it," was the resolute reply. Blanche Vansant led the way, not to the front of the mansion, but around the square to a court. Her companion followed her. She stopped at a little gate set in the masonry of the high brick wall surrounding the mansion. She urged him to silence and caution as they crossed the yard and entered the lower portion of a singular-looking structure directly behind the house. She closed the door behind them, and extended her hand to his own, to lead him in the darkness. "Trapped!" she murmured intensely, as her hand sought her bosom. 134 VICTIMS OF CRIME. She had concealed there when behind the curtain in the library a stiletto. She grasped its jeweled handle now, a fierce, murderous joy in her treacherous heart. " Wait," she commanded; " we must go cau- tiously." She estimated the position of her enemy so as to strike but once, and that once with effect. Her hand raised the weapon, and then descended with the rapidity of light. A wild cry of pain, a gurgling moan, a heavy fall followed the movement. "Fool!" hissed the siren, triumphantly, "you have invited your own doom! Another out of the way who would block our path to fortune! Our secret is safe ! " CHAPTER XXII. VICTIMS OF CRIME. THE false Percy Grey was seated at a desk hastily looking over some papers, when Blanche Vansant, after her sanguinary encounter with Bryce Williard, glided from the private passage-way into the library. Towner's face was ashy in its hue, his eyes rest- less and haunted, his hands trembling as he turned and regarded the intruder. " You returned, and that way?" " Yes," said Blanche, " the passage is accessible from the deserted store-room back of the stables, and I came that way. " " Heavens! what is that?" Towner shrank back with an appalled look on his face as he uttered the startling ejaculation. It was the jeweled dagger, still clutched tightly in the woman's hand. VICTIMS OF CRIME. 135 She regarded her accomplice with a look that was impressive, as she coolly bundled the blood- stained weapon in her handkerchief, and then, flinging aside Myrtle Blake's bonnet and shawl, placed the knife in the pocket of her dress. " That means another obstacle removed from our path by a sure, quick blow. The girl what have you done with her?" she demanded sharply. " In the uppermost room of the laboratory. " "And locked in safe?" " Yes; she cannot escape." " Nor attract attention from the outside?" " The only light in the apartment comes from the side-windows in the roof. " A satisfied gleam shone in the siren's eyes. " So far, good," she remarked. " We have her in our power, and she can do us no harm. Courage! You are trembling like a leaf. Do you weaken at the very moment when resolution and calmness will win the day?" "The knife! you have not told me?" gasped Towner. It seemed as if, formerly the cold, cruel plotter of the two, had changed positions with his accom- plice, whose deliberate wickedness so surpassed his own that he almost shrank from her. " The knife?" she repeated, with a low, triumph- ant laugh. " It removed a dangerous enemy Bryce Williard." " Your former friend " " And accomplice; exactly," assented the woman, calmly. " Listen!" She related what had occurred since she left the house, the man listening with petrified eyes and pallid face. He started up anxiously when she had completed her recital. 136 VICTIMS OF CRIME. " You think him dead?" he murmured, in a choked tone of voice. " Yes, the blow was a strong one." " We must not leave his body where it is." " No, secrete it here are trap-doors leading to the cellar of the laboratory, to the sewers and the river." " Wait." Earle Towner seemed to regain his former courage as he realized the possibility of a discovery of the body, and left the apartment. When he returned his face was intensified in its pallor, and a haunted expression was in his eyes, but his nerves were firm, and his lips determined. " You have removed the body?" asked Blanche. " Yes," he answered, hoarsely. " We are tread- ing on dangerous ground, Blanche. I shall only feel safe now when the fortune is ours, and we can fly to some foreign country." " To accomplish that we must falter at no crime," answered the siren. These two people we have met to-night are the only enemies we have to face. " " Unless they may have confided in others," "It is not likely." " What is that?" Towner started nervously as a loud, quick ring sounded at the door. " Crime had made his guilty soul shrink at any trifling occurrence, and his old pallor increased. " Some visitor," said Blanche, carelessly. A servant answered the summons. There was a brief parley, audible only in the sound of low murmurs to the listeners in the library; then the front door was closed, and hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor. Blanche went to the library door as the servant knocked lightly. IN DEADLY PERIL. 137 " The messenger is waiting for an answer," she said, as she handed a letter to her mistress. Blanche glanced at the superscription on the envelope. It was addressed to " Mr. Percy Grey," but she opened it, notwithstanding. Towner, watching her closely, apprehensively, saw her lips compress, and a slight anxiety cross her face. " What is it?" he asked. " Read for yourself. It is from Dr. Marcy." " At the private asylum where he is?" "Yes." Earle Towner perused the letter, his hands trembling, his eyes expressing a new concern as he did so. " Our patient, your prisoner," the missive ran, " who claims to be P. G., was seen, recognized, and conversed with a visitor to-day. He had better be removed. Come at once," CHAPTER XXIII. IN DEADLY PERIL. SPLASH! The sound echoed only once through the deserted store-room in the laboratory of the Towner man- sion. Then a trap-door went down with a bang and the retreating footsteps of Earle Towner were the only sounds that echoed on the silent air. Thus he had told Blanche Vansant he had dis- posed of the second enemy of the night to their plots, but had he waited he would have been less confident of the success of their mutual murderous intentions. 138 IN DEADLY PERIL. Suddenly through the deserted structure an ap- palling shriek echoed. It emanated from the upper story of the building, and then all was still. The death cry or scream of awakening alarm from the lips of the imperiled Myrtle Blake it was not repeated, but a moment later it seemed to find a hoarser echo, as if from beneath the founda- tions of the structure itself. . A struggle beneath that fatal trap-door was going on, a wild, desperate battle for life. The victim of Blanche Vansant's deft treachery, Bryce Williard, was not dead, and when Earle Towner flung his senseless form through the trap- door, contact with the water that lay beneath it, that of some abandoned cistern or sewer, revived him. Wounded as he was, weak from the loss of blood, blinded and choked with the water into which he had fallen, a wild strength seemed to come to his rescue. " Only for revenge," he panted, " only to repay this last act of treachery, do I crave for life." All his fierce hatred of Blanche Vansant flashed forth like a flame. It seemed to overcome physical pain and exhaustion. He seized at a timber pro- jecting from the floor to save himself from sinking again in the slime-covered water, and groped about to find some way of regaining his liberty. Wearied, bedraggled, almost dead, a few minutes later there crept from beneath the structure, by means of a wooden drain, along which he had felt his way, the miserable creature who had so nar- rowly escaped death. He was unable to reel from the spot; he sank to the ground at every step he sought to take. " I must wait; I must rest," he muttered grimly, through his clenched teath. " Oh, my lady, you shall pay dearly for this night's treachery." IN DEADLY PERIL. 139 He managed to crawl into the same large apart- ment where Blanche Vansant had led him. There, in a kind of daze, he lay for over an hour. Nature seemed to recruit itself, despite the ad- verse conditions of the hour. He had drank the greater portion of the contents of a phial contain- ing some powerful stimulant he seemed to carry with him for contingencies, and he struggled to his feet, and muttered hoarsely: " I will have the wound attended to; I will regain my strength. Then " In the darkness, even, he shook his fist at the mansion and its occupants, but paused abruptly as he was about to leave the place. A sound like a moan, faint, yet distressful, reached his hearing. He paused and listened intently. It proceeded from the direction of an open stairway, and he slowly reached this and again stood motion- less. The sound was repeated. Was it that he traced a familiar voice even in the faint respiration of dis- tress, or did he remember what Blanche Vansant had told him? " Myrtle Blake! " he gasped, wildly. " That fiend told me she was a prisoner in their hands. Ah! if it is only so if I could but find her, rescue her, gain her confidence, and win her to become my wife. Then I would crush these others hark ! the sound again. I will venture up the stairs." They terminated in a corridor, at the end of which his hands met the surface of a heavy iron- studded door. From beyond that as he stood there, distinctly there fell upon his hearing a gurgling moan like the last choking gasp of a dying person. He flung himself against the door with all his strength. It did not even shake at his efforts. " The lock," he muttered, as he drew several I4O IN DEADLY PERIL. small steel objects from his pocket. " I can pick that, unless it is a double one." His proficiency as a criminal aided him in his present dilemma. A moment's manipulation re- leased the lock. He opened the door, but fell back as if the scorching blast of a simoon had crossed his face. A vapor, dense and overpowering, issued from the room, choking and blinding him, and almost robbing him of consciousness. He did not know that Myrtle Blake, in the dark- ness of her prison, when she recovered conscious- ness from the swoon in the library, had, in groping about, upset some bottles containing the liquids and gases with which Samuel Towner experimented. Intuitively divining that Myrtle Blake was in the room, he dashed recklessly forward, at last stum- bled over a prostrate form, realized with delight that it was a woman, and bore her forth with diffi- culty from that noxious, deadly atmosphere. A wild joy surged within Bryce Williard's heart as he gained the lower floor and then the outer air. The dim half-light of the night showed the white motionless features of the limp form he bore in his arms. " It is she; it is Myrtle Blake! " he cried fiercely. " I have found her, I have saved her. Have I strength to get her away from here? Can I obtain a carriage to convey her to a place of safety? Ah! she is as beautiful to my sight as ever. She shall be mine; that first, then the fortune which may be obtained by a deep plot or awarded me as a price for silence. " He carried her to the end of the court, laid her within the shelter of a stone wall, and hurried to the street. Ten minutes later he returned with a carriage and lifted her into it. ESCAPED. 141 The vehicle threaded various thoroughfares, and at last came to a halt at an isolated structure near the river. Williard dismissed the coachman and carried Myrtle up a flight of stairs, unlocked the door, and laid her on a couch in a meanly-furnished apart- ment. He lit a lamp, drew down the curtains, and gulped down a glass of liquor from a bottle on the table. "They cannot trace me here to my den," he murmured with satisfaction. " Love and fortune are mine if I play my cards right. " He paused abruptly as he glanced at Myrtle Blake. She had arisen on her couch, and stood staring at him with dilated eyes and pallid face. " Bryce Williard! " she gasped, wildly shrinking back at the sight of this new enemy, with horror and apprehension. CHAPTER XXIV. ESCAPED ! DEEPENING plots and complicated motives had assailed the tenure of safety of the two plotters in the Towner mansion, and they had baffled their en- emies that night, only to be confronted by a new peril. " I must go at once to Dr. Marcy," said Earle Towner. " Who could have recognized our pris- oner? " " Perhaps some casual visitor or old acquaint- ance." remarked Blanche, thoughtfully. " So much the worse for us, then. Dr. Marcy would not have written did he not know that dan- ger threatened. " 1 42 ESCAPED. " You will go at once, then? " "Yes." He left the room and the mansion a few moments later. He did not order the carriage, for the place he was going to was one which he always visited secretly. A street-car took Earle Towner to the limits of the city. He walked half a mile and came to a walled enclosure, in the midst of which stood a large frowning mansion. There were iron gates in front of the structure, and all the windows at the sides were barred. Towner rang the door-bell; there was the sound of heavy bolts and chains unfastened, and a stout, evil-faced man confronted him. " Ah! it's you, Mr. Towner? " " Yes, Dr. Marcy; I received your note. " " Come in. I was anxious over the affair, and thought it best to inform you about it, "and the proprietor of the private insane asylum led the way to his office on the second floor of the house. " You wrote me that your patient had been seen and recognized," began Towner. " Yes; it occurred to-day, during my absence." " Who was the person? " Dr. Marcy described the visitor, a man, who, pretending he wished to confine a relative in the asylum, had gained access to the establishment had seen and conversed with the patient. " It is Bryce Williard," murmured Towner. " He has indeed possessed himself of our secrets." Then, aloud, he said, as he became apprehensive that Williard might have imparted his discovery to some friend and accomplice: " What do you intend to do!" " I think it best to remove the patient." " Where? " " To an asylum farther away from the city. " ESCAPED. 143 " He will be safely guarded there? " " By a trusty friend. He is too profitable a patient to lose," replied the Doctor slyly. " We will transfer him to-night. " Some money passed between them, and Towner left the place, satisfied that he would experience no trouble from Williard's discovery. It was an hour later that Dr. Marcy ordered two attendants to get a wagon ready to remove a patient. A few minutes later another attendant ushered the patient in question into the doctor's office. It was Percy Grey. His face was wofully thin and pale, his eyes gleamed with the hunted light of a man who had suffered injustice and imprisonment. " Am I to be set free? " he demanded, huskily. " Is this infamous persecution to stop at last? " " Be calm, my friend," spoke the doctor, in smooth, oily tones. " Calm! " cried Percy Grey, wildly. " Do you realize what I have suffered for the past year, shut up among the demented minds of this hell upon earth?" " Be careful, sir," warned the doctor, angrily. " My institution has received the indorsement of the highest medical authorities." " I care not. It is outrageous that I, a sane man, the victim of a vile plot, should be torn from my friends. I, Percy Grey, whose words you might verify " " They all say that. He imagines he is Percy Grey. He's getting violent. Call in the attend- ants. Let them handcuff him, and take him away, as ordered," said Dr. Marcy. Percy Grey recoiled as he discerned the heart- lessness of the doctor. As he did so, he observed 144 ESCAPED. a horse and wagon standing unhitched in front of the asylum. It was the very vehicle secured to convey him away to a new and safer asylum. A wild thought aroused him, as he observed a possible chance for escape. The windows of the doctor's office were not barred. Quick as light, he lifted the sash, and, springing to the sill, dropped through space. Percy Grey was free ! Dr. Marcy rushed to the window. H,e saw his patient land directly on the wagon, saw the horses start, and the escaped man seize the lines and dis- appear. One hour later, a messenger, breathless and wearied, rang loudly at the bell of the Towner mansion. He bore a letter for the false Percy Grey, brief, but terrifying to the man to whom it was directed. For it read: " Our patient, your prisoner, who claims to be P. G. , has escaped." Earle Towner reeled where he stood, as the words danced before his vision. He saw the mighty fabric of fraud he had reared so carefully topple and fall, crushing him in the ruins; he saw his cherished plots shattered at one blow. Percy Grey was free, and that liberty meant dis- aster tc his fondest schemes and those of his dan- gerous accomplice, Blanche Vansant. A SUBTLE SCHEMER. 145 CHAPTER XXV. A SUBTLE SCHEMER. IF Myrtle Blake had been terrified and repelled by the dual plotters in the Towner mansion, she was doubly alarmed as her waking vison took Bryce Williard within its scope. To this man she attributed all her early troubles, and she shrank from him with a cry of horror and dread. Evidently he read the quick impulse of flight in her face, for he glided to the door, turned the key in the lock, and thus prevented any sudden at- tempt at escape. " Wait!" he said, lifting his hand with a reassur- ing gesture, to quell the cry for help that arose to her lips. " I am your friend " " My jailer, rather," interrupted Myrtle, wildly. " Why have you brought me here? I will cry for help." " And doom yourself and the man you would save to peril and death," replied Williard, solemnly. " You seek only to frighten me. You are carry- ing out some part of the plot of that woman, Blanche Vansant, your accomplice." A dark scowl came over Williard's face. " My accomplice! " he cried. "My bitterest enemy! Think you I would have saved you from the death she meditated for you, had I been a party to her plots? No; I swear to you that all my thoughts and energies are bent only to balk this woman in her evil designs." There was a fervency in his words that evidently impressed his auditor. Myrtle gazed at him earn- estly, searchingly, at this new phase of the case, forgetting her possible peril. He did not quail be- fore her deep glance. Desperate 10. !46 A SUBTLE SCHEMER. " I have seemed a villain to you in the past," he went on. " I was one, I may be one now; but I will not deceive you with false representations. I have but two objects in life; the one is to avenge myself for the wrong that woman has done me, the other " He paused, his voice grown tremulous, his eyes devouring her with passionate gaze. " The other? " she faltered, mechanically. " To win your love." She recoiled with a look of abhorrence, but started as he went on. " To win you, whose life I just saved." "Mine!" " Yes," he pursued, rapidly; " from a death pre- pared for you by your enemies, Blanche Vansant and the fraudulent Percy Grey." Bryce Williard had noted with delight that, in- terested in what he had told her^anxious to learn of the plots against her and of the man whom she loved, Myrtle Blake forgot her past abhorrence of him temporarily. Especially at hearing him speak of the man re- sembling Percy Grey, she had started forward, and, in her eagerness and excitement abandoned all fear of him. " You know that? " she cried. " He is not Percy Grey he is an impostor?" "Yes." " And my and the real Percy Grey? " "Is alive." "Oh, thank Heaven! thank Heaven!" cried Myrtle, tumultuously, her hands clasped, her eyes filling with joy and relief. " You know where he is; you will lead me to him? " She paused abruptly, and retreated slowly. A change had suddenly come over Williard's face. The old jealousy and hatred of Percy Grey was A SUBTLE SCHEMER. 147 there; even the old subtlety and avarice flashed up in his eyes. For the moment he had forgotten self, but now personal interest became uppermost again. " I lead you to Percy Grey! " he repeated, coldly. " You forget " " Aye, I do forget myself for allowing you to de- ceive me; you, whose past villainy should have warned me that I have no mercy to expect at your hands." " Listen and know all the truth, then, Myrtle Blake," spoke the man. " Alone you are unable to cope with the plots of Blanche Vansant and Earle Towner. Alone you can never find Percy Grey. I can help you. I will help you, but I ask a reward for my labors. You must become my wife." She stood staring at him in blank amazement and horror; she did not speak; she did not even shrink from him now. Was it possible that Bryce Williard, the very in- stigator, originally, of the plot to make her wed him the night she was believed to be drowned, did not know of her marriage to Percy Grey? Or was he playing a game so deep that his affect- ation of innocence seemed sincere. He did not wait for her to speak, but went on volubly: " I have the proofs that will send Earle Towner to prison, and unmask and completely baffle your bitter enemy and rival, Blanche Vansant. I can penetrate to Percy Grey's prison and release him. You love him. You hate me. I am aware of this. Still I say, become my wife, and I will do all these things I promise." " Are you mad? " cried Myrtle, suddenly aroused. " Think you I forget the past? " "Stop!" cried the man, peremptorily. "You have heard my proposition. If Percy Grey is saved, it must be at once. If you would regain 148 A SUBTLE SCHEMER. your liberty, you must agree to become my wife now. You think this all covers a new plot on my part. Perhaps, but it is your only alternative. You are my prisoner. You cannot leave this place until I will it. Your enemies, within a day, may secure a fortune not their own and disappear. A night's delay of aid may mean death to Percy Grey. I care not for all this, I care only for you. Wed me, and I am your slave, and you shall direct the battle against your enemies, the rescue of your friends; refuse, and you shall never escape; you shall be my wife, even if by force." His rapid, determined words revealed completely the situation of affairs to Myrtle. She paled as she realized his power and read the confidence of sin- cerity in his face. No matter how she shrank with abhorrence from this man, when he spoke of Percy Grey her heart gave one great throb of suspense. He knew where he was; he, Bryce Williard, affirmed that her husband was a prisoner and in peril of his life. She could learn where; she could save him but at a sacrifice she must wed him. She saw herself in the net that held her on all sides. She saw that subtlety and deceit were successful in the hands of her enemies. In her ter- rible distress, why not employ them in return, to baffle the evil plots of those foes. Evidently Bryce Williard did not know of her marriage to Percy Grey. Apparently he assumed her interest in him to be only the love of an affianced wife or devoted friend. Myrtle Blake determined that she would not un- deceive him. If he spoke truly of Percy Grey's danger, she must learn more of its details at all hazards. She would, if necessary, go through the ceremony of marriage with Williard, provided he would tell her of Percy, and then would hasten to A SUBTLE SCHEMER. 149 his aid. If Williard should ever claim her as his wife, she would reveal the truth that the last cere- mony was illegal. If the law ever held her account- able for the act, she would claim that she acted on compulsion. " My way is clear," she murmured, thoughtfully. " No matter how I shrink from this man, I must save Percy Grey. I will award him plot for plot, deceit for deceit." Evidently he took her silence for hesitancy, and regarded her eagerly, impatiently. " Come," he said finally, " your answer. I offer to set Percy Grey free, to restore him to liberty, and to crush your enemies at the mansion you visited to-night. I offer to be a free and indulgent husband to you to lift you from poverty to afflu- ence, but you must become my wife." Myrtle had risen to her feet, and faced him un- flinchingly now. " You are in earnest? " she asked, her eyes never leaving his face. "Yes." " And you understand that I can never love you, that only in name would I be your wife; that this act of compulsion would alone make me shrink the more from you? " He frowned, but nodded assent. " If I wed you, do you swear to tell me at once where Percy Grey is to lead me to him? " " I swear it," cried Williard, eagerly. " He shall even be restored to his rightful fortune." " And I am free to leave you to go where I will? You accept me only in name as your wife? You only wish to wed me, to consummate some plot of avarice or revenge on your enemies? " " Yes, yes; I have told you," ejaculated Williard, secretly enraged at her repugnance for him, only ISO A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT. urging forward the accomplishment of the deep design he had formed. " I agree then to wed you. Do not delay; do not deceive yourself, either. For some mysterious purpose you wish to marry me. I care not, so that it leaves me free to hasten at once to Percy Grey's rescue." A deep, scheming light shone in Williard's eyes, as he smiled triumphantly. " I will return in an hour," he said, leaving the apartment, and locking the door after him. " In an hour she will be my wife," he murmured, exult- antly, as he reached the street below. " She thinks she is deceiving me she thinks me in ignorance of the past. When the truth comes out there will be a scene; but fast and sure, she can not break the bonds which make her Mrs. Bryce Williardr" CHAPTER XXVI. A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT MYRTLE BLAKE sank back with a low cry of dis- tress and weariness as she found herself once more alone, and tried to think out coherently the problem that perplexed her mind the motive Bryce Wil- liard had in forcing her to a marriage. " It must be that some secret of my father's is in his possession 'that he hopes to carry some point of importance by securing control of my actions. I will baffle him; but even if it were really necessary to link my fate to his to save Percy Grey, I would do it." It was the thought uppermost in her mind, and she was tortured with uncertainty and suspense as she recalled what Williard had affirmed of her hus- band's deadly peril. A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT. I$I For the time being she forgot Blanche Vansant. the false heir at the Towner mansion. If she could only find Percy and restore him to liberty, the unmasking and punishment of these bold schemers would follow. She counted the silent, dreary moments after Williard's departure. If womanly pride and honor shrank from the ordeal she had accepted, she re- membered the issues at stake, and steeled her heart to the deceit necessary to save a loved one's life. " I will not shrink or falter," she whispered to herself. "I will carry through the fraud. He will lead me to Percy Grey. I will save him and tell him all, and then inform Bryce Williard that the ceremony was a deception that I am Percy Grey's wife. He will be powerless to injure me then, and, in reparation for my deceit, bad as it is, I will urge Percy to reward him for saving my life and aiding in his rescue." It was thus in her guileless mind, little knowing the depths of Williard's true plots, that she planned out her course. She was still thinking of it when she heard steps outside the door. " Will you wait for a moment, please, until I announce our coming to the lady? " she heard Wil- liard ask a companion in the hall outside. " Certainly," replied a low voice. Williard entered the room and came to where Myrtle had risen to her feet, and, her face slightly pale, stood awaiting him. " You understand," he said, in rapid, but sub- dued tones, " I have brought a clergyman. You will not recede from your promise to make no scene before him? " He sought to eagerly take her hand, but she shrank and shrivered at the touch. " If you hope to escape by appealing to the stranger I have brought, and telling all, you will 152 A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT. be disappointed," remarked Williard suspiciously, frowningly. " I have no such thought," replied Myrtle, calmly. " And you will go through with the ceremony? " " As I agreed, yes; but you must do as you have promised." " About Percy Grey? " "Yes." " I swear it! " "He shall be released?" " Within an hour after you are my wife." The words grated harshly on Myrtle's hearing, but she repressed any expression of emotion except to say, in a tone strangely cold and determined: " If you deceive me in this, you will regret it. Persecution and suffering have made me desperate. Delude me this time and I swear to give my life over to but one thought of avenging your perfidy." Williard moved restlessly, uneasily, at the sud- den, vengeful flash in Myrtle's eyes, but said im- patiently: " I will keep my word. You are ready for the ceremony?" "Yes." Williard went to the door. A clerical-looking individual entered the room a moment later. Myrtle did not even notice him. Her brain in a whirl, she was only dimly conscious that he asked her if she was wedding her companion of her own will, and then the marriage ceremony was hastily gone through. It revived that other hurried marriage at the riv- erside so vividly that she could scarcely control her emotions. The clergyman spoke a few formal words of congratulation and then left the room. " What a mockery," murmured Myrtle, in a hoi- A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT. I S3 low tone of voice. " Oh, Percy, Percy! will it save you?" The door was closed and locked. She started as Bryce Williard came to her side. " You are my wife at last! " Utter triumph was in his tones as he spoke the words. His evil face glowed down upon her with an expression that frightened her. " Yes," she gasped, tremulously, shrinking from him, " I have done as I promised. It is for you to fulfill your agreement." " You mean ? " he insinuated, coolly. " To restore Percy Grey to liberty. "I will not falter in that promise. Listen, Myr- tle. I hate this man jealously, madly. To make him free means to give him the power to regain a fortune which, by a little scheming, I myself might secure in part. For your sake, however, I disdain the golden bribe to silence. He shall be free." "When? "cried Myrtle, impatient at Williard's deliberate manner and delay. "This night this hour." " Then lead me to him " Williard interrupted her with a mocking laugh that froze her confidence in him to agonizing dis- trust and suspense. " Do you imagine I will do that? " he demanded. " Send you, my wife, to a rival? No! " " But you promised " " To set him free. Yes, and I will do so, but you must have no hand in it." A low, disappointed moan broke involuntarily from Myrtle's lips, and she sank to a chair, pale and trembling. "You have deceived me! You have broken your promise!" she cried. " No; you agreed to become my wife if I set Percy Grey free. I will do so. Remain here until 154 A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT. I return, and I will prove that I have done as I agreed." " Remain here?" " Certainly. Would you run after Grey when you are my wife? No, no. There is no scheme under my wedding you, Myrtle Blake. It was pure love. For its sake I abandon wealth and vengeance. You are mine, and for your happiness I will give up all my plans for a fortune and revenge. " Myrtle's fair face had become deadly pale. This man was in earnest; his manner proved it. " My life linked to yours! " she choked out. " It would be worse than death. Never! I went through the ceremony, supposing some scheme of gain was beneath it, but to be your wife " Her words enraged Williard wildly. " You are my wife," he cried angrily. " As such I shall exact obedience of you. Break the bands if you can or dare." " I can, I dare, I do! Villain, I read the truth in your false face. Unfaithful in one promise, you are so in all. You have no thought of releasing Percy Grey. It is all a fraud and deception. I re- scind every promise made. I distrust and defy you, and I alone will save the man I love." She was fully aroused at last, and springing to her feet she confronted Williard with flashing eyes and majestic mein. "You cannot," he hissed, his eyes lurid with anger. " You are my legally-wedded wife." " I am not. The ceremony just concluded was a mockery. I gave you deceit for deceit. " " Be careful, you know not " "You do not know!" cried Myrtle, spiritedly. " I am not your wife, because " She paused to note the expected crushing effect of her startling words on Williard. " Because I am already a married woman; because A TRAGIC DENOUEMENT. 155 I am 'the wife of Percy Grey," she concluded, tu- multuously. "Indeed! " Williard's tones were sneering. To Myrtle's sur- prise her announcement did not move him in the least. " Yes," she cried. " The night I fled from you in Chicago I was wedded to him." A harsh laugh burst from Williard's lips. " You are mistaken," he said slowly, deliberately. " You are not Percy Grey's wife. You were never married to him." A vague dread oppressed Myrtle's heart as she noticed the confident expression in Bryce Williard's face. " I expected this, "he went on, coolly. " I plotted on it. I knew you believed me in ignorance of your supposed marriage. Know then that the ceremony of this evening is binding and legal, and that marriage with Percy Grey a farce and mock- ery." " I do not believe you, " gasped Myrtle. " It is true. I never intended to marry you that night at the riverside. The man who performed the ceremony between yourself and Percy Grey was no clergyman at all. " " Merciful heavens! " moaned Myrtle wildly, the truth dawning upon her mind at last. " He was a hireling of my own, an impostor. Percy Grey was never your husband, and you are now my wife, mine alone." His triumphant features bent near to her own with malignant satisfaction as he prononuced her doom. " Villain, assassin, perjurer! " shrieked Myrtle, as she beat back his face and sprang to the window. " I would die ere I acknowledge you as my hus- band. Help! help! help!" 156 CLOSING IN. She had dashed through a window which opened upon a frail balcony. Her wild cries filled the dark void before her, her frantic gaze saw no escape in the darkly gleaming waters of the river rolling placidly below. Williard, alarmed and excited, had sprang upon the balcony, and, seizing her hands, endeavored to drag her back into the room to stifle her cries. Struggling wildly, the balcony creaked omin- ously beneath their weight. She pushed him back suddenly. The rail gave way. Then one awful cry of horror broke from Myrtle Blake's lips as she saw Bryce Williard's form go hurt- ling through the inky void into the rushing waters sheer fifty feet below. CHAPTER XXVII. CLOSING IN. UPON the afternoon of the day succeeding the appearance of Myrtle Blake at theTowner mansion, that fashionable residence was the scene of a series of occurrences which, culminating in a dramatic denouement ere the sun again arose, indicated that the schemes of the two arch-plotters, Blanche Vansant and Earle Towner, were nearing an end. The schemers had fully taken the alarm when the intelligence arrived of the escape of Percy Grey from the private insane asylum. " We must lose no time," said Earle Towner, when the first confusion of fright had passed. " Within twenty-four hours we must fly." " You will wait that long you think it will be safe? " inquired Blanche, anxiously. " Yes. He has no means of knowing our where- abouts. He doubtlessly will return at once to CLOSING IN. 157 Chicago, for he has no knowledge of my imposture. There, learning that he is supposed to be here in Cincinnati, the heir of Samuel Towner, he will readily comprehend the true condition of affairs. " "And then?" " A complaint to the police will end our schemes, and our days of liberty alike. I shall hasten my arrangements for securing all the ready money pos- sible to-day." " How? " " By a loan. We dare not wait for the sale I have ordered. To-night we will fly, for the ex- plosion will occur soon." " You seem to have forgotten one thing," re- marked Blanche uneasily. " What is that?" " That Percy Grey may come at once to this house, the former home of his uncle." Towner started, but said, impatiently: " That is not probable. However, we must not delay in our flight. " And leaving the house, he did not return until late in the afternoon. He was greeted with a new surprise by Blanche Vansant when he entered the library. She in- formed him that she had visited the laboratory, and had found their prisoner, Myrtle Blake, gone. For over an hour the discovery proved a source of dread uneasiness to Towner. They could only theorize that Myrtle had broken open the door of the room in which she had been imprisoned and had escaped, but the contingency of her visiting the police, and imparting her knowledge of Town- er and his imposture, frightened them. " Do not lose a moment of time," he said, ex- citedly, to his companion. " I will order the car- riage ready, and in an hour we will leave the place for the first train from the city. " " But the money? " I $8 CLOSING IN. " Will be here shortly. I have borrowed every dollar I could, and the broker agreed to have it here by this time. Better that than to remain and be unmasked and lose all. Hasten, Blanche. I feel that we are not safe." Both of the plotters were in a feverish state of apprehension for the next half hour. Towner started as the door-bell rang, but answered it himself. A boy handed him a package and a letter, and Towner breathed a fervent sigh of relief as he closed the door and hastened to the library. It was getting quite dark and he lighted the gas, and, with an eager gleam in his eye, undid the parcel the messenger boy had just brought. " The money from the broker," he muttered, in a satisfied tone, as he revealed a package of bills of large denomination. " Enough to live royally for a time, at least. And now to fly with the woman whose courage and plotting against Percy Grey have enabled me to secure the money. " He tore open the letter, which inclosed a blank receipt for the package, and then, leaving both it and the money on the table, hurried from the apart- ment to hasten Blanche in her arrangements for an immediate departure. He had not noticed a rustling of the curtains of an alcove, or smoking-room, that connected with the library. He did not know that, added to the already manifold complications of the hour, there was a new source of fear represented by the unseen presence in the adjoining room. He and Blanche, both ready to leave the house, returned to the library a few moments later. She was dressed as if for a journey, and carried a small traveling satchel in her hand. " The carriage is waiting in the court for us," CLOSING IN. I $9 spoke Towner. " Here, put the money in a safe place - He paused a moment, uttered a startling cry, and then stared blankly at the table before him. " The money! " he gasped; " it is gone!" " Gone! " cried Blanche, wildly; " what do you mean? " " I left it on the table there, only a minute since. " And Towner began to search Lir it, while Blanche, nettled at the delay, cried: Some servant has taken it. Are you mad, to leave a fortune lying around loose for the first careless thief to pick up? " Blanche crossed to the curtains of the alcove, as she imagined she heard a suspicious sound, and, sweeping them aside, peered beyond them. But, if any one had been hiding there, no signs of such espionage were now apparent. A terrible cry from Towner caused her to hasten again to his side. In a dazed, helpless manner, he stood staring at a written paper in his hand. It was one he had just picked up from the table, the unsigned receipt that had come with the money. It was signed now, however. On the bottom line, the ink scarcely dry, was a name Percy Grey! "Great heavens! what does this mean?" he gasped forth, finally. " I did not sign that paper. I see it all. He has been here he has seen the money. We are lost! " A sickening apprehension came into Blanche Vansant's dark face, but she said, with affected incredulity: "Impossible!" " The evidence his handwriting! "said Towner. " He has found his way to the hous^. He knows I6O FACE TO FACE. all its secret passages. He has been watching us, and at last has balked our schemes." " He could have come but one way the corri- dor from the laboratory," said Blanche; " search, hasten; you may find him yet! " " No, no! We must not delay. The police may have been already informed. Let us fly with what jewels and money we have, ere we are arrested and it is too late." He caught her arm excitedly, to hasten her to the court and the waiting carriage. He fell back, as a woman's form appeared at the door leading from the room. " It is too late! " spoke the intruder. " The po- lice have been notified, and fate has overtaken all your evil schemes at last! " A dead pall of silence fell over the amazed plot- ters, as they gazed at the new-comer. For it was Myrtle Blake! CHAPTER XXVIII. FACE TO FACE. SHE had closed the door after her, and advanced into the library with a firm step and a confident manner, that made the amazed plotters tremble, as they read a bold determination, a hidden menace in her words. " Yes, it is I," spoke Myrtle; " no longer your helpless victim; no more the meek, frightened child I was, but an avenger, EarleTowner. I know you now, Blanche Vansant; the wicked scheme of im- posture, that has placed Percy Grey in an insane asylum, is known to me at last." She had cast aside her veil, and confronted them without hesitation or fear. Neither spoke. In the FACE TO FACE. l6l light of the fast-occurring episodes of the past few hours, they realized that, trembling on the brink of discovery, a crisis had come. " You sought to kill me yesterday," again spoke Myrtle; " I escaped. The man who rescued me was Bryce Williard. From his lips, I learned of Percy Grey. I came hither; I stole my way into this mansion. I am here to defeat your carefully- formed schemes. You hoped to fly ere your crimes were discovered. Again I say, you are too late." She must have nerved herself desperately in the course she was pursuing, for neither the hate-filled glance of Blanche Vansant, nor the murderous, baffled light in Towner's eyes served to intimidate her. Towner's eyes, aside from a hunted, frightened expression, showed a quick, calculating light. The woman before him read his thoughts, as he glanced beyond her, as if expecting a companion; as if he supposed, from her bold manner, that she had as- sistance, if required, near at hand. " I am alone," she said, " but I do not fear you. In your power, as you may suppose, I am more dangerous to your plans than if a dozen friends surrounded me. You were about to fly. There is your way. Leave this mansion, if you dare, until I give you permission." Blanche Vansant glanced at Myrtle, but paled perceptibly. Towner, vaguely terrified at her sud- den threats, was mute. " My hour of triumph has come," continued Myrtle steadily. " Bryce Williard is dead, but he told me enough to warn me how to act. To-day I have laid my plans for your punishment. When you leave this mansion an officer of the law will arrest you, unless I order otherwise. Should you again attempt to kill me, believe me, the trusty Desperate 11. 162 FACE TO FACE. aids I have secured will discover your crime within an hour. You doubt me you believe you are too powerful to be foiled. Come, I will prove my words." She caught Earle Towner by the arm and forced him to follow her from the library into the drawing- rooms. She paused at the front windows and pointed out upon the street. " Look! " she cried. Blanche Vansant, peering over Towner's shoulder, echoed his cry of alarm. Two men stood near the edge of the curb, their glance resting on the mansion. " Detectives! " gasped Towner, in an affrighted tone. " Yes/' responded Myrtle. " I have taken every safeguard to prevent your escape. I have told enough of the truth to the officers of the law to place you in the bonds of suspicion, at least. It rests with you, Earle Towner, whether I shall fully reveal your crimes and bring to you a merited punishment or not. This game is now in my hands. I have risked all, to gain or lose all. I care not for your ill-gotten wealth ; I care not for your escape and that of your guilty partner in crime, but I demand one thing." " And that is?" inquired Towner, in a voice choked with mingled rage and fear. " That Percy Grey be released from the insane asylum, where you cruelly placed him." " He is already " Blanche Vansant, about to reveal the truth and state that he was already free, paused abruptly. Towner had made her a quick sign to silence. Not for a moment did he doubt Myrtle Blake'9 words; he even exaggerated his peril in his own FACE TO FACE. 163 mind, but he also imagined he saw a way to outwit his new and resolute foe. " Suppose I should acknowledge all your state- ments that I am an impostor, and send you to Percy Grey, would you then retract your state- ments to the officers you have called into your service?" " No," replied Myrtle, coldly. " You have driven me to extreme measures, and I shall make no mistakes. You must send a letter that will bring Percy Grey here. Oh! I can read you plottings in your crafty eyes. You shall not outwit me again. You shall not gain one concession from me until I see the man you have so cruelly wronged at liberty." She walked again to the window, as if to see that the men she claimed to have called to her aid were still there. Blanche Vansant took advantage of the moment to glide to Towner's side. " Does she speak the truth?" she whispered in his ear. "Undoubtedly." " Then our escape is cut off?" " No; all may not be lost yet. No violence yet," he said, hastily, as Blanche's hand was revealed grasping a dagger in the folds of her dress. She confesses that she has not told all to the police. Suppose we defy her! How can she prove me to be other than Percy Grey?" "You forget." " What?" " The real Percy Grey. " " He may be recaptured; he may not come here at all." " But the receipt signed with his name indicates that he has visited the mansion surreptitiously." " May not this woman have signed the paper and 1 64 FACE TO FACE. have abstracted the money. Silence! Let me deal with her." Myrtle Blake had turned from the window and advanced toward them. Her face was impenetrable, her manner cold and uncompromising. " We have allowed you to go on in your bold course," said Towner at once. " We have heard your claims, and we deny them and defy you." " You defy me?" "Yes." " You invite the interference of the law?" "Yes." Myrtle's face expressed a vague surprise. " So be it," she said, advancing toward the door, as if to leave the house. " You must answer to justice what I demand the release of Percy Grey." " I am Percy Grey." "A falsehood! You can never sustain the im- position." " I can, and will. Prove, if you can, that I am not he." Myrtle Blake was disquieted as she realized how much he resembled Percy Grey. "Then," she said, boldly, "if the law fails to prove you Earle Towner, I will still defeat your plans!" " How?" " By claiming to be Percy Grey's wife. If you are he " Towner started and uttered a cry of dismay as he divined the contingencies of his position. " If you are he," continued Myrtle, " I demand that you acknowledge me as your wife." It was a bold move, a last desperate resort to bring the schemer to terms. " I demand, as your wife, that you divide the fortune stolen from Percy Grey." NEARING THE END. 1 65 Fatal words. At that moment a form that had haunted the mansion unseen for some time had come to the curtained entrance to the drawing-rooms. Unseen by the engrossed occupants, his pale face grew horrified as he heard these last words. " Great heavens! " he gasped forth; " she, too, in the plot she says she is his wife! " He staggered into view suddenly. " Plotters! assassins! " he cried wildly, " behold your victim! " An awful shuddering cry escaped from Blanche Vansant's lips, while Earle Towner shrank back as if dealt a sudden blow. " Merciful heavens! " he gasped; " Percy Grey! " Myrtle stood transfixed for a moment, her eyes riveted on the pale, wretched man she had once called her husband. Then, with one wild, surging cry of joy, she sprang toward him. An insane light gleamed in Percy Grey's eyes. " Back! " he almost shrieked, " traitress, fellow- schemer of these murderous fiends! It was you who betrayed me to my doom! " An appalled cry rang from Myrtle Blake's lips. CHAPTER XXIX. NEARING THE END. THE crisis they had feared had certainly come to the baffled plotters, and they seemed to realize it fully as they gazed upon the victim of their past cruelty. He was pale and thin, and his step was unsteady as he stood gazing at them, but the wild gleaming light in his eyes spoke of the determination and vengeful hatred of a desperate man. 166 NEARING THE END. " You shall all suffer for the wrong you have done me," he cried. " Do not approach me, traitress! " he ejaculated, as Myrtle clasped her hands in mute entreaty. " You have doomed me to a living death; you plotted for my fortune, but you are baffled, foiled!" " Not I; not I; oh! Percy, my love, my own, I have been true to you I have suffered almost death for your dear sake." Percy Grey's eyes rested on Myrtle in vague in- credulity. " Do not attempt to deceive me," he uttered hoarsely, " for the entire truth justice will soon re- veal, and it will not avail you." "I swear that I speak truly!" cried Myrtle fervently. " Then why have you claimed that man, that impostor, as your husband? " "Because he defied me to prove that he was not Percy Grey; because, driven to desperation, I de- termined tp punish him in any way, at any sacrifice, to defeat his plots. You doubt me still? Your eyes bespeak reproach. Know, then, that all this I have done, and yet you had no claim npon me. I am not even your wife. The marriage ceremony which seemingly made me the bride of an hour was fraudulent, a farce devised by our mutual enemy, Bryce Williard. " Before the amazed Percy Grey and the discom- fited plotters Myrtle Blake poured forth the eloquent story of the past. As the former listened the light of restored confidence and love illumined his face, while the schemers grew pale and concerned. Earle Towner had stealthily glided toward the door and eagerly seized a package Percy Grey had dropped from his hand amid his excitement. "The money!" he muttered to Blanche; "we must make a bold dash for liberty. Come." NEARING THE END. l5/ He himself succeeded in reaching the hall. As Blanche Vansant attempted to follow him, with a sudden spring Percy Grey reached her. His eyes gleaming with the resentment of wrongs long endured, his hands grasped her arm and dragged her forcibly back into the room. " You shall not go, fiend! Siren, you shall listen to my condemnation ere I hand you over to the law." Blanche struggled wildly. " Help, Earle, help! " she cried frantically to her fugitive accomplice. But Earle Towner, with the innate treachery ot a scoundrel, had sought only his own safety in flight. " For all the crimes you have committed against me and mine, you shall suffer deeply," cried Percy. " Do not fear, Myrtle, I shall not do violence to this creature. Justice shall avenge our wrongs. Listen, fiend, to the long record of intrigue and crime." He paused suddenly. His hands relaxed his clasp of Blanche Vansant's arm, and he grew deathly pale. He staggered back, his eyes closed, and he sank to the floor a dead weight. " He is dead! You have killed him! " cried Myrtle, frantically. About to fly, a crafty light came into Blanche Vansant's eyes. She thrust Myrtle from her path and stood tri- umphantly over Percy Grey. " My place is with him, for I am his wife." "You! "cried Myrtle. "Yes. If your early marriage with him was a fraud, his second marriage with myself was legal. Ah, you pale. I am the victor again. He dares not, he cannot prosecute his own wife. I shall yet share his fortune! " " Call for help; he may die -" 168 TRAPPED. " And if he does, all the better for me! " cried the heartless siren. " As Percy Grey's widow, I would be the heiress to all his fortune! " CHAPTER XXX. TRAPPED. AT the very moment that the exciting scene de- scribed in the previous chapter was taking place, the elements of a new and deft plot were in progress in the near vicinity of the Towner mansion. As Earle Towner had told Blanche Vansant, he had ordered the carriage ready, and for over an hour the coachman had been seated on the box of the family vehicle at the rear of the house awaiting orders. He had dismounted at last, impatient at the long delay of Towner, and paced the stone-paved court restlessly. Darkness had come down over the scene and he did not notice that a cloaked form had stealthily gained the court and was regarding the rear win- dows of the mansion with a searching glance. " I'm getting chilled and tired of waiting," the coachman muttered. " I don't believe Towner wil go out until after dinner. I guess I'll hurry around to the corner and get a drink to warm me up. " As he disappeared, the cloaked stranger came out from the deep shadow of the laboratory struc- ture, and started toward the mansion. He drew back somewhat dismayed as a hurrying figure came from the house. It was Earle Towner, and he discovered the stranger as he reached the carriage. " Quick! " he ordered, hoarsely, evidently mis- taking the latter for the coachman amid his excite- TRAPPED. 169 ment. " Drive to the nearest railroad station as fast as you can." The stranger paused irresolutely. Then, a wild glitter of the keenest satisfaction in his eyes, he sprang to the box and seized the reins. " Earle Towner, and evidently about to escape," he muttered. " I'll spoil his scheme, and settle Blanche Vansant's affairs later. " He drove from the court and out upon the street. A few minutes later he turned into a side street. " Where are you going? " cried Towner, leaning excitedly from the carriage window. " A short cut to the depot, sir," came the assur- ing reply, in a feigned tone of voice. The vehicle came to an abrupt halt at last. The pretended coachman sprang to the curb almost as soon as it stopped. Earle Towner looked out with a surprised, irri- tated expression on his face. " This is not the depot," he said, and then he started as he recognized the building before which they had stopped. It was a gloomy, ominous-looking structure, and a large lamp in front bore the words " Police Sta- tion." " What does this mean," began Towner. " Who are you? Not the watchman? " " No, Earle Towner," came the cool response; "get out." " Who are you, I say? What does this mean?" " You shall soon know. " Towner took a quick alarm, and made a move- ment as if to escape by the opposite door of the vehicle. " Halt, and obey me, or you are a dead man! " spoke the stranger, ominously. Earle Towner uttered a cry of despair as his cap- tor drew a revolver. I/O TRAPPED. Before its menacing glitter he stepped from the carriage. " There is some mistake here," he said, attempt- ing to regain his composure. " I presume you are a detective? " " No, I am no detective." "Who, then?" " Your enemy and that of your evil-hearted ac- complice, Blanche Vansant. I am Bryce Williard." A shudder passed over the frame of Towner. With a sullen face he allowed his captor to lead him into the police station. He did not hear Bryce Williard's whispered ex- planation to the captain of police. He believed silence to be prudent under the circumstances, and was led to a cell a minute later. " I will return in an hour and explain all about this case," said Williard to the officer. " It is a case where you need have no fear of imprisoning the man on my representations. " He drove rapidly back to the mansion, and gained an entrance to the library, and then to the hall. As he reached the door of the drawing-rooms and peered in, a dramatic tableau met his gaze. Percy Grey, recovered from his swoon, sat gaz- ing blankly at Myrtle Blake and Blanche Vansant. " I defy you," the latter was saying; " you cannot testify against me; I, your legal wife, Percy Grey." "But I can! " As he spoke the words, Bryce Williard stepped into view. " You, Bryce Williard! " cried Blanche, wildly, while Myrtle shrank back affrighted. " Yes, I, your enemy, sworn to avenge your base treachery. Your accomplice, Earle Towner, is a prisoner in the hands of the police, and I will not spare you." TRAPPED. 171 With a wild cry of rage the baffled siren sprang toward the new-comer. As she did so her hand flashed forth the glitter- ing blade of a jeweled stiletto. Before Williard could repulse her, it descended on his unsheltered breast. He sank back as the blood gushed forth from a fatal wound. " Siren! Murderess! you have killed me!" he gasped. At this moment the horrified Myrtle and Percy were startled by a quick ring at the door-bell. The former glided from the room and soon re- appeared. " The police! " she murmured, as two men fol- lowed her into the apartment. Blanche Vansant, fairly at bay, stood facing them defiantly. Bryce Williard staggered to his feet, gasping for breath. With a desperate cry he drew the weapon from the wound in his breast. Then, with one last dying effort, he reeled to the side of Blanche Vansant. His fingers clutched her convulsively, the death- rattle in his throat. He raised the weapon and dealt her a quick blow. Bathed in blood, Blanche Vansant uttered a cry of mortal pain as Williard fell dead at her feet. CONCLUSION. CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION. " THE woman is dying, the man is dead." It was one of the police officers who made the announcement. Bryce Williard lay motionless on the floor, while his victim, Blanche Vansant, was convulsed in the throes of the death agony on a sofa to which the officers had removed her. " I will not die! " she raved frantically. " Yon- der pale-faced child shall not triumph. Williard, coward, assassin, you have foiled me at the last." Even in her dying moments her evil nature was dominant. There was no remorse, and Percy Grey, overcome by the horrors of the scene, led Myrtle from the apartment as one of the officers went for a surgeon. But the guilty siren died ere medical aid could reach her, and one hour later Williard and his victim were removed to the morgue. In the library of theTowner mansion, that night, a long and interesting consultation was held. The captain of police was sent for, and to him in detail Percy and Myrtle went over all the past plottings of their enemies and their own sufferings. Percy Grey cleared up all the dark mysteries of the past. He explained away all his seeming faith- lessness to Myrtle, and told how, after meeting her at the grave, Earle Towner had removed him to a private insane asylum, whence he had escaped the night previous and found his way into the Towner mansion. Myrtle related all that has been already told to the reader, and in addition narrated how she had called the police to her assistance and had surrepti- tiously entered the house, with the results already seen. CONCLUSION. 173 It was a sleepless night for all the inmates of the mansion. With the morrow the last act of the dire- ful tragedy was closed, for Earle Towner com- mitted suicide in his prison cell. With his former accomplices he was buried the ensuing day, and the money he had sought to es- cape with was returned to the Towner estate. One week after there was a quiet wedding at the mansion, and at last Percy Grey claimed for life the bride he had won and lost in a single hour in the far past. They did not remain amid the scenes which for the present brought vague memories to their minds, but made a tour through the South, returning later to secure a pleasant home near Chicago, where their love-life had first begun. One day a strangely, unexpected letter was re- ceived by Percy Grey. It made himself and his beautiful wife sad and happy at the same time. It was from a man in the far West, and it stated that it was written at the request of a dying man John Blake. It narrated that Blake had not been killed by the railroad accident, but had received injuries which rendered him temporarily insane. He had wandered to the West, and in a mining camp, while still insane, had been met and recog- nized by the faithful Ansel Grey. The latter had cared for him and nursed him back to health, and later, in defending him in a fight with Indians, was killed. Dying, Blake forgave his old-time enemy who had so wronged him in the past, and removed the venom of his hatred from Percy Grey. Life began in earnest for the hearts at last re- united. In the long golden years of the future they knew the reward of right triumphing over wrong, and 174 CONCLUSION. happiness and joy brooded over their peaceful home. But, amid its delights, Myrtle Grey never forgot the time when she was the humble Cinderella, and was a victim to the tragic plots of heartless schem- ers which nearly wrecked her young life upon a Weird Wedding Night. N ana's Daughter, A STORY OF PARISIAN LIFE. BY- ALFRED SIRVEN AND HENRI LEVERDIER, With a letter from the authors to M. Emile Zola. TRANSLATED FROM THE 2Uth FRENCH EDITION. When M. Emile Zola wrote " Nana," the world thought that no truer photograph of the kaleidoscopic life which is so truly and essentially Parisian could be brought out by any other author. It remained for Alfred Sirven and Henri Leverdier to combine French wit, ingenuity and realistic word-painting to disapprove this opinion. " NANA'S DAUGHTER," by these gentlemen, faithfully portrays, with graphic lights and shadows, that zone of Parisian life from which the beau ntonde gathers all that is chic, Frenchy and worldly. The character of Nana' : daughter, in vivid contrast to her mother, that queen of the demi-monde, shines like a pure crystal amid the sordid surroundings and demoniacal plots which at times almost engulphed her, and, irredescent to the last, remains untarnished and spotless, a tribute to virtue. The book maintains its thrilling interest to the very end. The charac- ters are skillfully sketched, and the plot most interestingly complicated. FOR SALE ON ALL TRAINS, AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. Sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price. LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, CHICAGO. POLYGAMIST MORMONS ! HOW THEY LIVE AND THE LAND THEY LIVE IN. BY FRED. E. BENNETT, DEPUTY UNITED STATES MARSHAL. The author of this interesting narrative has, in graphic language, faitK fully depicted the stirring and exciting life he leads in ferreting out, with keen detective ability, the necessary evidence to convict the polygamous mormons, who rebelled against Federal authority. In his experience as Deputy United States Marshal he arrested forty offenders, some of them the most notorious of this notorious people. The Mountain Meadow Massacre, that most foul blot on the history of the great West, is, in these pages, told in all its atrocious reality, and with dramatic skill. The secrets of the celebrated and mysterious Endowment House are herein unfolded, and the manners, customs and life of this peculiar people are told with candor and truth. The graphic descriptions of the great West is of itself valuable to tourists and home- seekers. The reader may say, in all due sincerity, that " Truth is stranger than fiction," when reading the stirring incidents and almost;. incredible account of the mormons, but Mr. Bennett has simply thrown the clear light of investigation on this " dark stain on our country's escutcheon," and placed it before the public in a most fas- cinating manner. Printed in large type on good paper, fully illustrated, and elegantly bound in extra cloth, with ink and gold side and back stamps. PRICE $1.5O. We want agents to handle this book, to whom we offer most liberal terms. For sale on all railroads and at all book stores, or will be sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price. ERIRD * nee, polishers, COR. CLARK AND ADAMS STS. CHICAGO. ^fc. ^^ F3r"N rjr-^- - s M ^vw^P^^vP *jNr iPM^^-W .~V. v ^Sfefa*^ -c,.--. J /*^W" V ^-_v^ ~ ^ ; ^fen ,/^nf -^* < -!> w^s^>k^^< -^"/^.r* vt-*^ -^^f w\- v *^*?" !c ? ^ "< *^^,^f,i^; Vv-v,*^- '.^j&T . K*^^^Z^^&^ *&%** ifS^PwP Ss*JL -AV vd-r- \J%L^/~ -** I }& > <^^s?t?fc ^ ty ^"Jt/^ ^tW -*^ ! ^^ -ifel PfilrS ^^^^^^v^^^^^^^ ]S^S^ iP 1 T&f^:^^' t^ 4^*T^^^^r \ ^ xT "^S^Sr^ i )e&^^)l^5^>>^^) "" Vx A>2- 5*^6*^" . WY^Jr 2K/>- ^-v^&- . ^ ^"^ g^/y^y V* % -