IN MAD FLIGHT.
Mrs. Howard went away, relieved, yet contemptuous.
“It was an easy victory, after all,” she told Prince Gonzaga. “She made
a show of resistance that seemed genuine at first, but at the last I
saw plainly that it was all for effect. She will receive you in one
hour in her room.”
His brilliant black eyes flashed with triumph.
“I told you so!” he said coolly, and she could not help sighing at
this confirmation of the mercenary spirit of the girl she had loved so
dearly and believed so good and true.
The prince was jubilant. He thanked her eloquently for espousing his
cause, and expressed a hope that the old friendship between herself and
his wife might always continue.
But Mrs. Howard was one of those truly good women who are unconsciously
hard toward the erring, and call that hardness by the name of justice.
Fair’s deceit had so outraged her that she felt no wish to be her
friend any more.
So she shook her head, and replied frankly:
“I am not as noble in mind as you seem to be, Prince Gonzaga. I cannot
forgive your wife for the way she tricked and deceived me into being
her friend. When I leave your villa, which I will do as soon as Bayard
Lorraine is able to be moved, my acquaintance with Princess Gonzaga
will be forever at an end.”
He bowed, and expressed some polite regret, but in his heart he was not
sorry.
“She will be more easily won when she realizes that she has not a
friend left but me,” he thought, in triumph, and gave himself up to
unrestrained joy at the victory he had won over the girl whom he loved
in spite of his belief that she was mercenary and heartless.
“It was an easy victory,” he repeated sarcastically, as Mrs. Howard had
done, and he waited impatiently for the hour of his probation to pass.
“Vain little beauty, she is making herself beautiful for her prince,”
he thought egotistically, adding moodily: “How I hate and love her in
the same breath, the mercenary little wretch!”
But they would not have felt so sanguine if they could have seen what
was transpiring in the room where the hapless Fair had been left alone
with her sympathizing maid.
As soon as Mrs. Howard left the room, Fair turned eagerly to Betty.
“Betty, you are my good friend,” she exclaimed eagerly. “Now, you must
help me to escape from here. I will not see that man! I will not live
with him! I would die first!”
“Lauk, ma’am, don’t you want to be a real live princess?” exclaimed the
maid.
“No! I hate that man as I hate a deadly serpent, and, since I have no
friends here to protect me against him, I shall run away. You must
help me, for I have no one else to turn to in my trouble. If Bayard
Lorraine were well, I believe that he would pity me and defend me. But
he is dying, I fear, and I will never consent to live with the man that
murdered him.”
And in low and rapid tones she confided her plans to the maid, who left
the room immediately after, to follow out her instructions.
Fair threw herself into a chair before her desk and wrote two hasty
notes:
PRINCE GONZAGA: I have fled from you again, and pursuit will be
utterly useless, for, should I ever find myself in your power
again, I would at once and most unhesitatingly take my own
life rather than endure your hated love. You carried a bullet
for my heart two years, you say, and I in turn have carried a
dagger that longs for my own breast in case all other means of
escape fail. Be generous, and let me live my poor life hereafter
unmolested by the man who murdered my mother and my lover, and to
whom I owe all the misfortunes of my life.
In despair and desperation.
FAIRFAX FIELDING.
On another sheet she wrote:
DARLING MRS. HOWARD: I have fled in despair from the man I hate
and fear, and throw myself on the mercy of Heaven. If my darling
ever recovers, do not let him hate my memory. Ask him to pity me
at least, for my love for him has been my fate. May Heaven bless
you for all that you have been to me in the past two years, my
noble benefactress. Yours in love and sorrow,
FAIRFAX FIELDING.
Betty returned as she finished sealing and addressing the two notes,
and then she said:
“My dear girl, please pack one change of clothing into a little hand
satchel for me, and put in the little case with my diamond jewelry.
Perhaps I ought not to take Mrs. Howard’s gifts, since she hates me
now, but I am poor and friendless, and I must sell them to get away
from Italy. As for you, my good little friend, take this ring for my
sake,” and she drew a solitaire diamond from her finger and held it
out, but the good girl refused it.
“It is too costly, and you will need it to buy bread some day,
perhaps,” she said, with tears in her honest eyes. “But I will take
that little turquois lace pin, if you please, to remember you by.”
Fair gladly gave her the pretty trifle she desired, then she hurriedly
dressed herself in the things Betty had just brought--a plain brown
cashmere dress, small poke bonnet, and thick veil. Betty often wore
this costume on little errands for her mistress, and as both were of
about the same size, they made an excellent disguise for Fair, who
kissed Betty gratefully, drew the thick veil closely over her face,
took the little satchel in her gloved hand, and stepped boldly out into
the hall.
It lacked ten minutes yet of the time accorded Prince Gonzaga for the
interview with his wife.
Betty opened the door to him presently, with a frightened face, and
gravely presented the two notes.