But we must digress a short while from the main points of our story to
note what became of our villain, Otho Maury, after Floyd Landon and our
heroine left him unconscious on the floor, to recover at his leisure
from his long swoon.
Never was a villain assured of success in a nefarious design more
cleverly checkmated.
In a few minutes after their departure, Otho revived, and lifted his
head in wonder at his position.
A darting pain in his wounded neck recalled him sharply to a sense of
all that had happened.
He had gone to Suicide Place to search for Floy, and found her; but she
was armed, and had attacked him desperately with a murderous looking
dagger.
He had swooned with the pain of the wound she gave him, and knew no
more.
How long ago had that been? How long had he been lying here? And where
was Floy?
He called her name faintly in the silence, but only the echoes of the
grim old house gave reply.
“She has fled the scene believing that I am dead, curse her!” he
muttered, vindictively, dragging himself up out of the slippery pool
of blood beneath him, and dropping heavily into an arm-chair. Then he
discovered, to his surprise, that his neck had been carefully bandaged.
Not knowing, of course, of the presence of the detective who had come
upon the scene the moment after he swooned, he was filled with wonder
at the fact that Floy had apparently bandaged his neck.
“But she has escaped me again! The foul fiend must have helped her to
drive that blow into my neck!” he muttered, angrily; adding: “But she
would not have found me such an easy victim--I could have grappled with
her and taken away the weapon--only that I was unnerved and trembling
from the sights I had seen before I entered this room.”
He shuddered and glanced fearfully at the door, as though expecting
some unearthly presence to appear.
“Alone in a haunted house!” he muttered, fearfully. “I that always
laughed at spooks and phantoms! But I shall never deny them again. I
have stumbled by accident on the secret of this old house, and I know
that it has its restless ghost. What if I could turn my knowledge to
account, and---- Ugh! what was that?”
He broke off, shuddering, for a fiend’s laugh seemed to echo in the
stillness--the laugh of a fiend who has tempted some poor soul to its
eternal ruin. It was more than the unstrung nerves of the man could
bear.
With a muttered imprecation, he seized his hat from the floor, where it
was lying, and groped his way out of the dismal house into the sweet
night air.
But as he closed the door and turned from the accursed threshold, that
fiendish, mocking laugh seemed to follow him with taunting echoes down
the road.
Slowly and painfully he made his way home, thankful that the pall of
midnight covered the earth, so that none saw him in the blood-soaked
garments he wore.
Going to Maybelle’s room, he told her what had happened, and asked her
to examine the wound.
Shuddering at sight of the blood, his sister carefully unwrapped the
bandages, and found that the wound--a very slight one, though it had
bled freely--had already been carefully dressed.
“Your swoon must have been a long one, to enable her to do all this
before she fled from the house,” said Maybelle, as she carefully
replaced the bandages.
Otho was bitterly chagrined at the failure of his scheme and Floy’s
second escape from his devilish machinations.
“And the worst of it is that I can not follow up her track for some
time now. I shall be obliged to keep my room several days with this
mark of affection she has given me,” he growled.
Maybelle wept in bitterness of spirit; but she had no reproaches to
offer him now. He had done all that he could, and was not to blame for
his failure.
It seemed to her as if her lovely rival must indeed bear a charmed
life, so cleverly had she escaped each time from the machinations of
her enemies.
Her chances of ever winning Beresford grew each day less and less; but
so madly had she fixed her heart upon him that it seemed to her without
that hope she must die.
It was less than a year since she had known him, but her jealousy had
altered all her life.
Before she met him, Maybelle had been simply a handsome, selfish girl,
ambitious to make a grand match--even to secure a title, if possible.
Mrs. Vere de Vere had abetted all her desires; but no grand suitor had
fallen into the net they spread until Beresford’s careless flirting had
awakened hopes never to be realized, and, alas! roused the sleeping
devil in a nature well endowed with capabilities for evil.
What a potent factor is Love in all the affairs of life.
Laugh at Love, flout him as we may, he still is our master, we his
slaves.
“Not till Love comes in all his strength and terror,
Can we read other’s hearts; not till then know
A wide compassion for all human error,
Or sound the quivering depths of mortal woe.
“Not till we sail with him o’er stormy oceans
Have we seen tempests; hidden in his hand
He holds the keys to all the great emotions;
Till he unlocks them none can understand.”
Maybelle’s unhappy love and thwarted ambition had roused all the worst
passions of her nature. She would have committed any evil deed that
would have won her Beresford’s heart.