Mr. Finley had left Pansy and sought his home again in a tempest
of fury and baffled cupidity, realizing fully that his scheme of
blackmailing her would not succeed, and that he must look elsewhere for
booty.
Pansy’s dauntless bravery and defiance had certainly staggered his bold
courage, and he began to fear that he was not going to receive such a
windfall as he had expected from Pansy’s secret. Having a dangerous
secret of his own, which would be sure to come to light if he proceeded
openly against her, he found himself in a quandary.
“The plucky little wretch! Who would have believed that she would
openly defy me, and deny her identity? Why, she would have handed me
over to that policeman in another moment if I hadn’t cut and run,”
he exclaimed angrily, feeling that he would like to shake the little
beauty for her bold defiance.
He slept but little that night for thinking about her, and the next day
he came to the conclusion that, of all those concerned in the drama
in which he was so cleverly enacting the villain’s part, there was no
chance of blackmailing any but Colonel Falconer.
“He is rich and will pay liberally for the keeping of the secret I
hold against his wife,” he decided, and then he set his cunning brain
to work to devise a plan by which to approach Colonel Falconer on the
delicate subject of his wife.
Poor little Mrs. Finley, whom he had long ago reduced to the status
of a trembling, obedient slave, looked at him in wonder as he lounged
about the house, paying no attention to the grocery, for he had long
ago placed Willie in his store as a clerk, and the youth was very
reliable. She thought fearfully:
“There is something brewing in his cunning mind. Has he found out that
I have been seeing my poor little grandchild by stealth, and is he
planning some punishment for me?”
She trembled at the thought, for she knew that he was both cunning and
vindictive. He ruled her and her children with a rod of iron.
He had never forgotten or forgiven the assertion of his wife, that she
would never have married him if she had known that he would not care
for her children, and he made her and them suffer for it in various
ways. One of his favorite methods was to taunt them with the disgrace
that Pansy had brought upon them, and another was to keep alive in
Willie’s breast the fierce resentment and murderous wrath that had
taken hold of him when he first learned that his beautiful sister had
gone astray.
Left to himself and to the remorseful pleadings of his mother, the
young man might have got over some of his anger, more especially as
poor Pansy had atoned for her fault with her life. There were times
when the remembrance of her message to him, her pitiful promise that
she would never disgrace him again, stung keenly, and forced him to
accuse himself of being accessory to her death; but these moods never
lasted long, for whenever Mr. Finley found these kinder impulses taking
root in the youth’s mind he would dispel them by maliciously hinting
that, in all probability, Pansy was yet alive, and might turn up at any
time to recall to the world the scandal that had trailed its slime
over the name of Laurens.
“Pretty Kate North would not smile so sweetly then when she saw you
waiting at the church door on Sundays,” he suggested, with a leer that
brought the hot color to Willie’s cheeks, for this, his first real love
affair, was a very tender point with him, and he had often wondered to
himself if pretty little Kate North, with her black eyes and dimpled
red cheeks, thought any the less of him because of the family disgrace.
His love for Kate made him all the more bitter in his thoughts toward
Pansy.
“How dared she disgrace the family so? I hate her memory, even though
believing her dead and if I knew she were alive I should be tempted to
carry out my threat, and shoot her on sight,” he replied angrily to
the taunt of his stepfather that day on which Mr. Finley’s mind was
so engaged in plotting the best means by which to extort money from
Colonel Falconer for keeping the dark secret of his wife’s past.
He did not know that his malice had overreached itself, and that the
fury smoldering in Willie’s impetuous mind, and fanned into flame by
his sneers and gibes, would bear fruit to disappoint him of all his
avaricious hopes.
Willie was almost twenty now, with an overstrained sense of honor,
sharpened in intensity by his sister’s fault. He was sensitively alive
to the disgrace that rested on the family name, and had brooded over it
until he had grown morbid. His handsome young face remained dark and
cloudy after Mr. Finley went out, and his thoughts were so absorbed
that he could scarcely wait upon the customers who came in and out of
the neat store.
“Strange that he is always suggesting the thought that Pansy may be
alive, after all. Perhaps he knows more than he chooses to tell,” he
muttered. And the thought wore on him so that he went to the corner of
a shelf, where his stepfather kept a private bottle, and took a drink
of brandy to steady his shaking nerves.
Then, from a case in a hiding place of his own he took a small pistol
and examined it with gloomy eyes.
“It is all right,” he muttered hoarsely; then, at the sound of a step
entering the store, he replaced it hurriedly, and turned around, to
face Mr. North, the father of the girl he loved.
“Good afternoon, Mr. North. What can I do for you?” he inquired
politely.
Mr. North was only a clerk, but he was inordinately proud and
ambitious, and his face darkened with anger as he returned brusquely:
“I want a few words with you, young man. My wife tells me that you have
been paying some attention to my daughter Kate?”
“Ye-es, Mr. North,” Willie stammered, with a boyish flush, adding
anxiously: “I trust you have no objection to my love for her?”
“Nonsense! You are nothing but a boy,” replied Mr. North curtly, and
the handsome young face before him deepened in color at the taunt; but
he answered, in a manly way:
“I am almost twenty, and my stepfather has promised to give me a
partnership in the store when I am twenty-one. My prospects are fair.”
“I care nothing for your prospects! It is your family I object to,” was
the brusque, startling reply. Then, as if ashamed of the taunt, Mr.
North went on, more gently: “I am sorry to wound your feelings, Willie;
I believe you are a good boy, in the main, although it was said at one
time that you were dissipated and wild. Still, you had an excuse for
that--the same excuse that I have in forbidding your attentions to my
daughter.”
“Mr. North!”
“I said that I forbade any more attentions to Kate. When she marries,
it must be one with a stainless family record. Your sister’s fault has
disgraced her family, and may do so even more terribly, for there are
many who doubt that she was ever drowned, and she may reappear at any
time.”
“Mr. North, are there any grounds for this belief?” the poor fellow
asked hoarsely.
“A face like hers has been seen several times in Richmond lately. Some
of the factory girls believe that they saw her yesterday as they came
from work. She is always richly dressed, and it must be that she is
leading a life of gilded shame in this city.”
A hoarse groan came from the stricken young man’s lips; then, with
flashing eyes, he exclaimed:
“Then she is running a terrible risk, for only let me find her, and I
will send a bullet crashing through her shameless heart!”
“No, no!” the gentleman exclaimed, recoiling in dismay, but Willie
Laurens angrily reiterated his threat.
“You will see,” he said. “She wrecked my life, and I will wipe out the
family disgrace in her heart’s blood.”
“You are mad, simply mad! Would you become your sister’s murderer, and
break your poor mother’s heart?” cried Mr. North, shocked and pained
by his furious mood, and not dreaming of the fiery fluid that had
inflamed the young man’s blood. He turned away from the reckless boy,
and was going abruptly out of the store when a horseman drew rein on
the pavement before him, and asked excitedly:
“Does the mother of Miss Alice Laurens live here?”
“Yes; is there anything wrong?” inquired Mr. North curiously, and at
the same moment the pale, agitated face of Willie Laurens appeared in
the doorway, and he said:
“I am the brother of Alice Laurens. What is wrong?”
The man looked at him with pitying eyes, and answered:
“Heaven knows I hate to tell you, but I have no choice. An accident has
befallen your sister. She fell through an open hatchway at Arnell &
Grey’s a few minutes ago, and--break it to her mother as gently as you
can, for they are bringing her here now. She is very badly hurt. It is
not believed that she can live.”
“Terrible!” cried Mr. North, as he flung out his arms to support Willie
Laurens, who had reeled and staggered in agony at that heart-rending
announcement.