Alice Belding was seated before her glass braiding her long hair. Her
mother had come in from her own room, as her custom often was, to chat
with her daughter in the half hour before bed-time. It gratified at
once her maternal love and her pride to watch the exquisite beauty of
her child, as she sat, dressed in a white wrapper that made her seem
still taller than she was brushing and braiding the luxuriant tresses
that gave under the light every tint and reflection of which gold is
capable. The pink and pearl of the round arm as the loose sleeve would
slip to the elbow, the poise of the proud head, the full white column
of the neck, the soft curve of cheek and chin,--all this delighted her
as it would have delighted a lover. But with all her light-headedness,
there was enough of discretion, or perhaps of innate New England
reserve, to keep her from ever expressing to Alice her pleasure in her
beauty. So the wholesome-minded girl never imagined the admiration of
which she was the object, and thought that her mother only liked to
chat a little before sleeping. They talked of trivial matters, of the
tea at Mrs. Hyson's, of Formosa Hyson's purple dress which made her
sallower than ever, of rain and fair weather.
"I think," said Mrs. Bekling, "that Phrasy Dallas gets more and more
stylish every day. I don't wonder at Arthur Farnham's devotion. That
would make an excellent match--they are both so dreadfully clever. By
the way, he has not been here this week. And I declare! I don't believe
you have ever written him that note of thanks."
"No," said Alice, smiling--she had schooled herself by this time to
speak of him carelessly. "I was too much frightened to thank him on the
spot, and now it would be ancient history. We must save our thanks till
we see him."
"I want to see him about other things. You must write and ask him to
dinner to-morrow or next day."
"Don't you think he would like it better if you would write?"
"There you are again--as if it mattered. Write that 'Mamma bids me.'
There, your hair is braided. Write the note now, and I will send it
over in the morning before he gets away."
Alice rose and walked to her escritoire, her long robe trailing, her
thick braids hanging almost to the floor, her fair cheek touched with a
delicate spot of color at the thought of writing a formal note to the
man she worshipped. She took a pen and wrote "My dear Mr. Farnham," and
the conventional address made her heart flutter and her eyes grow dim.
While she was writing, she heard her mother say:
"What a joke!"
She looked up, and saw that Mrs. Belding, having pushed open the
shutters, had picked up her opera-glass and was looking through it at
something out of the window.
"Do you know, Alice," she said, laughing, "since that ailantus tree was
cut down, you can see straight into his library from here. There he is
now, sitting at his desk."
"Mamma!" pleaded Alice, rising and trying to take the glass away from
her. "Don't do that, I beg!"
"Nonsense," said her mother, keeping her away with one hand and holding
the glass with the other. "There comes Budsey to close the blinds. The
show is over. No; he goes away, leaving them open."
"Mamma, I will leave the room if----"
"My goodness! look at that!" cried the widow, putting the glass in her
daughter's hand and sinking into a chair with fright.
Alice, filled with a nameless dread, saw her mother was pale and
trembling, and took the glass. She dropped it in an instant, and
leaning from the window sent forth once more that cry of love and
alarm, which rang through the stillness of night with all the power of
her young throat:
"Arthur!"
She turned, and sped down the stairs, and across the lawn like an arrow
shot for life or death from a long-bow.
Farnham heard the sweet, strong voice ringing out of the stillness like
the cry of an angel in a vision, and raised his head with a startled
movement from the desk where he was writing. Offitt heard it, too, as
he raised his hand to strike a deadly blow; and though it did not
withhold him from his murderous purpose, it disturbed somewhat the
precision of his hand. The hammer descended a little to the right of
where he had intended to strike. It made a deep and cruel gash, and
felled Farnham to the floor, but it did not kill him. He rose, giddy
and faint with the blow and half-blinded with the blood that poured
down over his right eye. He clapped his hand, with a soldier's
instinct, to the place where his sword-hilt was not, and then
staggered, rather than rushed, at his assailant, to grapple him with
his naked hands. Offitt struck him once more, and he fell headlong on
the floor, in the blaze of a myriad lights that flashed all at once
into deep darkness and silence.
The assassin, seeing that his victim no longer moved, threw down his
reeking weapon, and, seizing the packages of money on the desk, thrust
them into his pockets. He stepped back through the open window and
stooped to pick up his shoes. As he rose, he saw a sight which for an
instant froze him with terror. A tall and beautiful form, dressed all
in white, was swiftly gliding toward him over the grass. It drew near,
and he saw its pale features set in a terrible expression of pity and
horror. It seemed to him like an avenging spirit. He shut his eyes for
a moment in abject fright, and the phantom swept by him and leaped like
a white doe upon the platform, through the open window, and out of his
sight. He ran to the gate, quaking and trembling, then walked quietly
to the nearest corner, where he sat down upon the curb-stone and put on
his shoes.
Mrs. Belding followed, as rapidly as she could, the swift flight of her
daughter; but it was some minutes after the young girl had leaped
through the window that her mother walked breathlessly through the
front door and the hall into the library. She saw there a sight which
made her shudder and turn faint. Alice was sitting on the floor,
holding in her lap the blood-dabbled head of Farnham. Beside her stood
a glass of water, a pitcher, and several towels. Some of them were red
and saturated, some were still fresh and neatly folded. She was
carefully cleansing and wiping the white forehead of the lifeless man
of the last red drop.
"Oh, Alice, what is this?" cried her mother.
"He is dead!" she answered, in a hoarse, strained voice. "I feared so
when I first came in. He was lying on his face. I lifted him up, but he
could not see me. I kissed him, hoping he might kiss me again. But he
did not. Then I saw this water on the stand over there. I remembered
there were always towels there in the billiard-room. I ran and got
them, and washed the blood away from his face. See, his face is not
hurt. I am glad of that. But there is a dreadful wound in his head."
She dropped her voice to a choking whisper at these words.
Her mother gazed at her with speechless consternation. Had the shock
deprived her of reason?
"Alice," she said, "this is no place for you. I will call the servants
and send for a surgeon, and you must go home."
"Oh, no, mamma. I see I have frightened you, but there is no need to be
frightened. Yes, call the servants, but do not let them come in here
for awhile, not till the doctors come. They can do no good. He is
dead."
Mrs. Belding had risen and rung the bell violently.
"Do, mamma, see the servants in the hall outside. Don't let them come
in for a moment. Do! I pray! I pray! I will do anything for you."
There was such intensity of passion in the girl's prayer that her
mother yielded, and when the servants came running in, half-dressed, in
answer to the bell, she stepped outside the door and said, "Captain
Farnham has been badly hurt. Two of you go for the nearest doctors. You
need not come in at present. My daughter and I will take care of him."
She went back, closing the door behind her. Alice was smiling. "There,
you are a dear! I will love you forever for that! It is only for a
moment. The doctors will soon be here, and then I must give him up."
"Oh, Alice," the poor lady whimpered, "why do you talk so wildly? What
do you mean?"
"Don't cry, mamma! It is only for a moment. It is all very simple. I am
not crazy. He was my lover!"
"Heaven help us!"
"Yes, this dear man, this noble man offered me his love, and I refused
it. I may have been crazy then, but I am not now. I can love him now. I
will be his widow--if I was not his wife. We will be two widows
together--always. Now you know I am doing nothing wrong or wild. He is
mine.
"Give me one of those towels," she exclaimed, suddenly. "I can tie up
his head so that it will stop bleeding till the doctors come."
She took the towels, tore strips from her own dress, and in a few
moments, with singular skill and tenderness, she had stopped the flow
of blood from the wound.
"There! He looks almost as if he were asleep, does he not? Oh, my love,
my love!"
Up to this moment she had not shed one tear. Her voice was strained,
choked, and sobbing, but her eyes were dry. She kissed him on his brow
and his mouth. She bent over him and laid her smooth cheek to his. She
murmured:
"Good-by, good-by, till I come to you, my own love!"
All at once she raised her head with a strange light in her eyes.
"Mamma!" she cried, "see how warm his cheek is. Heaven is merciful!
perhaps he is alive."
She put both arms about him, and, gently but powerfully lifting his
dead weight of head and shoulders, drew him to her heart. She held him
to her warm bosom, rocking him to and fro. "Oh, my beloved!" she
murmured, "if you will live, I will be so good to you."
She lowered him again, resting his head on her lap. A drop of blood,
from the napkin in which his head was wrapped, had touched the bosom of
her dress, staining it as if a cherry had been crushed there. She sat,
gazing with an anguish of hope upon his pale face. A shudder ran
through him, and he opened his eyes--only for a moment. He groaned, and
slowly closed them.
The tears could no longer be restrained. They fell like a summer shower
from her eyes, while she sobbed, "Thank God! my darling is not dead."
Her quick ear caught footsteps at the outer door. "Here, mamma, take my
place. Let me hide before all those men come in."
In a moment she had leaped through the window, whence she ran through
the dewy grass to her home.
An hour afterward her mother returned, escorted by one of the surgeons.
She found Alice in bed, peacefully sleeping. As Mrs. Belding approached
the bedside, Alice woke and smiled. "I know without your telling me,
mamma. He will live. I began to pray for him,--but I felt sure he would
live, and so I gave thanks instead."
"You are a strange girl," said Mrs. Belding, gravely. "But you are
right. Dr. Cutts says, if he escapes without fever, there is nothing
very serious in the wound itself. The blow that made that gash in his
head was not the one which made him unconscious. They found another,
behind his ear; the skin was not broken. There was a bump about as big
as a walnut. They said it was concussion of the brain, but no fracture
anywhere. By the way, Dr. Cutts complimented me very handsomely on the
way I had managed the case before his arrival. He said there was
positively a professional excellence about my bandage. You may imagine
I did not set him right."