The concert was over, and hastily excusing himself to his companion, Guy
Kenmore made his way around to the private entrance; with some
difficulty he elbowed his way through the eager throng that waited to
see the lovely singer pass to her carriage, and was fortunate enough to
meet her coming down the steps on the professor's arm. He touched her
eagerly.
"Miss Brooke," he said, and she turned with a start and a cry. Her eyes
dilated with wonder as she saw by whom she was addressed.
"Mr. Kenmore--you here!" she exclaimed, and put out her delicate hand
graciously.
He pressed it warmly in both his own.
"I am delighted to meet you," he said, "I have news for you--good news.
May I call on you at the earliest admissible hour to-morrow morning?"
She glanced at the carriage.
"You may come with us in the carriage now if you will," she replied.
"The hour is not too late for good news from an old friend."
Then she introduced her friend to the professor. The gentlemen shook
hands cordially, and Bozzaotra repeated Elaine's invitation to come with
them in the carriage.
"Gratefully, if you can wait for one moment while I make my excuses to a
friend," he said.
They promised to wait, and Mr. Kenmore hurried back to inform Mrs.
Leslie that he would not return to the villa that night. He heard Julius
Revington saying that he should remain at the hotel that night and walk
out to the villa in the morning; but he paid small heed to the words, in
the preoccupation of his mind. He was longing to tell Elaine that her
daughter lived; and as soon as he had handed Mrs. Leslie to her
carriage, he hurried back to her.
She received him with a pensive smile of pleasure, and made room for
him by her side, the professor being seated opposite. The carriage door
was closed, and they were whirled away.
"It is a great surprise to see you here, Mr. Kenmore," Elaine began, in
her musical voice. "Is your news from mamma and Bertha? I have so longed
to hear from them; but, though I have written them several times, I have
had no news of them since I left Bay View."
"Bang! Whirr!"
His answer is not on record.
A pistol had been fired close to the horses' heads, and they plunged and
reared, almost upsetting the carriage. The shriek of the driver was
heard as he tumbled from his seat upon the stony pavement; then the
maddened steeds, without check or hindrance, dashed blindly forward in a
mad, terrified pace, dragging after them the rocking carriage, with its
precious, living freight.
Meantime, the man who had fired that reckless, murderous shot had been
overtaken by Nemesis.
In his eager excitement he had gone too near the horses' heads, and,
making his retreat, he had stumbled and fallen. In an instant they had
trampled his fallen body with their plunging hoofs. Compassionate hands
lifted him up from the stony street, a crushed and bleeding mass, in
which the spark of life yet feebly lingered.
The carriage driver was picked up senseless in the street, where the
maddened horses had hurled him in their swift rush to destruction.
Luckily, he had escaped the contact of their iron hoofs, and his
injuries, though serious, were not mortal.
But that poor sinner who, in the commission of a dastardly crime, had
been overtaken by a swift and just Nemesis, how fared he?
They placed him on a litter and bore him into the nearest house. Men
looked at that crushed and bleeding semblance of poor humanity, and,
turning away, shuddered with horror. The physician came, and shook his
head.
"My poor fellow, you can live but a few hours more," he said. "Tell us
who your friends are that we may summon them."
"Are you sure, quite sure, that I must die?" moaned the sufferer, while
the dews of terror beaded the weakly, handsome face which had escaped
the vicious hoofs that had beaten the life from his body.
"You cannot possibly live but a few hours longer," repeated the
physician as kindly as he could speak, and with a deep pity on his face
that would not have been there could he have guessed that the wretch had
wrought his own destruction.
Moans of terror and despair welled over the man's blanched lips when he
realized that death was so near him. He begged that a priest might be
sent for to pray the pardon of Heaven on his sinful soul.
"And your friends," they asked him, "shall we not bring them, too?"
With a moan of pain he answered:
"Send some one with a swift horse to overtake Clarence Stuart, who is
returning to his villa in the suburbs. Tell him Julius Revington is
dying, and--the lady--who was in the carriage--with the runaway
horses--if she is living, bring her to me with all haste."