"No fear of failure now--no fear of failure now!"
The words danced before her eyes in living, piercing flame of scorching
fire. "No fear of failure now!" and her heart just awakened to the
fact that she loved this man whom she had hounded to destruction. "No
fear of failure now!" What was that small, weak blundering affection
she had borne Olney Winthrop compared with this maddening, anguished
passion that was tearing her very soul to despair? What was that
frail, misunderstood liking, that sympathy that was almost pity, to
this swirling, eddying tumult of adoration that filled her breast to
bursting?
And Stolliker had assured her, with a note of triumph in the words
which not even the electric transmission had had power to destroy, that
there was "no fear of failure now."
She had told herself in those first days that she hated him; but
now she understood it all, cruelly, bitterly--understood that she
had deceived herself because she had heard those hateful words of
Jessica's about her birth; had heard his light laugh, and that it was a
scorching, searing jealousy that had tormented her--nothing else. And
now she was punished--punished!
If she had but allowed herself to acknowledge the love that Heaven had
sent her, she might have saved him the crime that he had committed;
and, oh, pitiful God, how well she understood that, too, now! She had
loved him from the beginning--from the beginning! No other love had
ever for an instant occupied her heart. And this was her punishment!
It was she who had fixed the crime upon him; she who had set the
blood-hound of the law upon his track; she who had paid thousands of
dollars for his conviction! And now it was too late to undo that which
she had done--too late to withdraw that evidence which she would have
walked blind and barefoot over the whole world to destroy.
And God had sent this bitter grief, this awful despair upon her because
she had presumed to take His authority in her own erring, human hands.
It was but just; and she loved him--she loved him!
She acknowledged it with a ghastly delight that brought sickening
anguish to her very soul. She loved this murderer!
But what was she that she should judge him? Surely she had been
punished enough for sitting in judgment.
And now, what should she do?
Let him go to the ruin and death to which she had betrayed him? Lift no
finger to prevent the crisis which she had wrought?
The thought maddened her.
The telegram was clutched between her fingers. Never pausing to
consider, she turned and fled from the room down the hall to Jessica's
door. She tore at the knob and flung it open.
Jessica was alone, fastening her white negligee at the throat. She
turned, but was not kept long in suspense by her visitor.
"For the love of God, look--look!" Carlita cried, as she thrust the
telegram before the eyes of her supposed friend.
And taking it calmly from the shaking hand, Jessica read it aloud:
"'Everything ready to leave the moment papers arrive. No fear of
failure now.'
"Well," she exclaimed, making no attempt to conceal her smile of
triumph, "surely you could desire no more?"
"Desire no more!" repeated Carlita, hoarsely. "You don't understand;
you can't--you can't! For God's sake, think for me! This must be
stopped at once--at once!"
"Are you mad?" demanded Jessica, coldly. "What are you talking of?"
"Of this hideous crime that I have brought about!" gasped Carlita.
"Those papers must never reach him--reach Stolliker. It must be
prevented at the cost of my very life, if needs be! We must give up
everything to purchase silence from Meriaz. Oh, Jessica, for the love
of Heaven, help me!"
"Help you defend a murderer? Help you protect a criminal?"
"Don't--don't! You don't understand, I tell you. It was I who drove
him to it--I who should be punished, if punishment must come to any
one! He loved me. I did not know the meaning of the word then, but I
know now--my God, so cruelly well! Jessica, listen, and then comprehend
all my humiliation, if you can. I--I, who was the betrothed wife
of Olney Winthrop--I, who swore that infamous oath to the dead--I,
who have mercilessly hounded a fellow-creature to the very jaws of
perdition, love him so well that I would take his crime upon my own
shoulders--yes, upon my own soul, and stand in the presence of God,
stained and branded, to save him! I am ready to stand your contempt,
your loathing, if you will but help me! Pity me--oh, merciful God, pity
me!"
She had fallen upon her knees at Jessica's feet, her head bowed in her
hands, her suffering too deep for tears. But the woman witness did not
offer to touch her; she stepped back and folded her hands coldly.
"You are too late," she said, with rigid cruelty. "The papers will be
in Stolliker's hands early tomorrow morning."
A cry of horror left Carlita's lips.
"Tomorrow!" she groaned. "Tomorrow! It can't be true--it can't be true!"
"It is," replied Jessica, in that hard, pitiless tone. "And even if
it were not, what would there be for you to do? When Meriaz made the
affidavit purchased by you, the testimony went into the hands of the
law. Do you think the law will wilfully see a murderer go unpunished
because you--love him? You must abide the consequences of your own act.
You have bought the proof of his guilt, you have practically brought
him face to face with the hangman's noose, and it is too late for you
to withdraw from the position you have taken. You said you would see
the play through to the bitter end, and there is no course left for you
but to do it."
"But I did not understand!" Carlita groaned. "I did not know!"
"Did not know that this guilty passion lurked in your breast? Did not
know you had fallen in love with the murderer of one lover? Verily, it
is worthy reason!"
"Do you think I mind your contempt? The very lash brings some ray of
comfort to my soul. Go on! I know now I deserve it all. Say everything,
only find some means to help me."
"There is no help--none earthly and I would not if I could. I am not
aiding and abetting criminals. I have fallen in love with no branded
Cain. If you can save those papers from reaching their destination, and
then close the mouth of Manuel Meriaz for all time to come, you may
hope to save this scoundrel lover, but until you do his fate must lie
in the hands of an outraged law."
But Carlita seemed not to have heard the latter part of the sentence at
all. Her hands had suddenly dropped from before her face, and into the
despairing eyes there leaped a ray of hope that irradiated her whole
countenance. She appeared for a moment to be thinking deeply; then
arose without a word, and was hurrying toward the door, when Jessica
started forward and caught her by the wrist.
"Where are you going?" she demanded, huskily, her excitement showing
itself in her usually clear voice.
"To him!" cried Carlita, passionately. "To him--to tell him the whole
foul story of my contemptible sin--to warn him of his danger and
beseech him to fly!"
Jessica laughed--the hatefulest sound, perhaps, that had ever issued
from those handsome lips. She dropped Carlita's wrist, and placed her
back nonchalantly against the door.
"Do you think that I will let you go?" she demanded, coldly, calmly.
"Do you think that I shall let you leave this room?"
"You would not prevent me? What revenge have you to win?"
A crimson flame seemed to lick out from the brown eyes, and a dull red
glow flashed into the oval cheeks. She stretched her arms across the
door and bent her head toward her victim.
"What revenge have I to win?" she repeated, allowing all the hatred
of her nature full expression. "What revenge have I to win? Listen
and you shall hear. Before you came into our lives, he--Leith
Pierrepont--loved me. But for you I should have been his wife. I loved
him. Pouf! what do you know of love? What is your paltry, pitiful
affection for him compared to what mine has been? But he turned from me
to you--overlooked my love for your toleration--passed me by, forsook
me, and I determined that he should pay for it with the last drop of
blood in his body! I hated you both, and from the very first I have
seen how it would be. Did you think I did not know of your love for
him? Do you think I should have left you so long alone, had it not been
to allow it to grow until you should suffer all that I had in store for
you? Did you think I meant that you should rob me of everything that
made life worth living, and then escape my vengeance? You do not know
me!"
A sneering sound like a laugh left her lips--hard, cold--sending the
blood tingling through Carlita's veins with stinging rapidity. She had
drawn herself up, all the Mexican fire of her nature aroused and in
action. The pleading anguish had all vanished, and only stern command
remained.
"Stand aside!" she exclaimed in a voice as clear and ringing as it had
been hoarse and supplicating before.
"Where are you going?" asked Jessica, imitating the tone.
"To Leith Pierrepont," answered Carlita, ignoring subterfuge.
Again Jessica laughed.
"You must be mad!" she replied. "Do you think I will be robbed of my
revenge in the eleventh hour?"
"Let me pass!" Carlita commanded again, going a step toward her.
"Never!"
For one dramatic moment the two determined women faced each other, and
then began a physical struggle for mastery.
There was not a sound, not a cry until they both tripped over a small
embroidered footstool and fell, Carlita's head striking the sharp edge
of a table.
Jessica arose at once, panting, flushed, but Carlita lay there, still
as death, her face upturned, but expressionless.
With fiendish hatred Jessica looked down upon her, even touched her
with the toe of her slipper, but there was no movement to show that it
had been felt.
Calmly, deliberately, Jessica regarded herself in the mirror, saw that
her gown was in order, then walked to her mother's door, and throwing
it open, said with cool distinctness:
"You'd better come into my room for a moment. Carlita tripped over a
stool and has hurt herself."