In all her life Iris had never experienced such a feeling of horror as
that which filled her heart on finding that she had been trapped to the
house on Lexington Avenue by the man whom we know as Charley Broughton.
“Let me go away. What wrong have I ever done you that you should
terrify me thus? What can you want of me?” she faltered, staggering
like one under the influence of liquor, as she attempted to walk to the
door.
But for all answer Broughton forced her back into the chair from which
she had arisen, laughing sardonically at her childish betrayal of
terror.
“My pretty one! I tell you I mean you no harm; why do you fear me so;
do you know me?”
Iris shuddered, and covered her eyes with her hands to shut out the
sight of his face.
“Do you know me, little Iris?” he repeated, fearing that she had not
heard his question, and laying a particular stress on the name Iris.
“I will tell you all I know of you,” cried the girl at last, with a
suddenness that startled Broughton more than he would have cared to
confess. “One day, some three years ago, my mother, who is an invalid
confined to her own chamber, sent me to her writing desk in search of
some prescription--or the receipt of a remedy that would ease her pain.
In my haste I overturned the desk, and shattered it, as the wood was
old and dried. While I was gathering up the contents, which had been
scattered upon the floor, I found among them a small gold locket which
I had never seen my mother wear. It was set with pearls, and I admired
it greatly. I remember that my mother cried out in alarm when she saw
the locket in my hands, but I had already opened it, and saw within
it the picture of a man’s face--your face. I questioned my mother
concerning the original, and for the first time in my life saw her
violently agitated. She told me then that the man whose face I gazed
upon in a species of fascination was my enemy--my enemy and hers, and
if ever I met him in life to beware of him, for he would leave no means
untried to work my ruin. That time has come, and your conduct toward me
proves that my mother’s fears were not without foundation. I am in your
power, a weak and unprotected girl, while you are strong and powerful
and pitiless; but although I was terrified at first by the means which
you employed to lure me into your power, I am not afraid of you now,
for I remember that there is a God who knoweth even the fall of the
sparrow, and that the same God watches over me in this--my hour of
peril.”
Iris had arisen from her chair while speaking, and stood before Charles
Broughton in an attitude of defiance, her small hands folded on her
breast, her pretty, bright-tressed head thrown back, and her eyes
uplifted in childish faith and confidence to the God who seems so dear
to such as her.
For one brief moment, Charles Broughton, sin-hardened, worldly, and
unprincipled though he was, turned his eyes away from the sight of that
pure, uplifted face, ashamed of his own vileness; but, alas! he did not
listen long to the promptings of his better nature. The one aim and
object of his life was to be revenged on one who had bitterly wronged
him, and through this innocent child before him he saw the means of
striking the first blow for the accomplishment of this revenge.
“You shall know the reason I have for being an enemy to the woman you
call mother,” he said. “You shall know why Evelyn Hilton speaks of me
as her enemy and yours. Twenty years ago I was not the man you see
before you to-day. I was young and hopeful and tender-hearted.
“It is true I had been led into bad company, and had allowed myself to
be drawn into temptation; but when I met the girl whom it was my fate
to love, I swore to overcome all this temptation and to live a life I
need not be ashamed to ask her to share.
“She was a poor girl, and married me; not because she loved me, but for
the reason that my father was a wealthy man, and she hoped to live a
luxurious life as the wife of his only son and heir.
“In this she was disappointed, for in the very hour in which he learned
that I had made Evelyn Hardress my wife, he disinherited me, and, dying
two months later, left all his wealth to the endowment of a charitable
institution, cutting me off with the mocking bequest of one dollar.
“Had I been alone the sufferer, I would not have felt this injustice
so bitterly; but my young wife was passionately fond of the luxuries
wealth alone could buy, and as I still loved her passionately, it
almost killed me to be obliged to deny her anything for which she
craved.
“At last I was obliged to tell her the truth; and from that hour my
nature changed, until from the weak, extravagant, but foolishly fond
boy of twenty years ago, you see me the bitter, vengeful man of to-day.
“You shrink from me still, and your heart clings to the woman who gave
you birth; but you can never know what agony I endured for that woman’s
sake.
“A distant relative of my father offered me at this time a position as
cashier in his bank, and my acceptance of this offer sealed my doom.
My wife was dearer to me than any consideration of honor, and when
she threw herself weeping on my breast, lamenting that she could not
attend a party to which she had been invited because of her inability
to dress as richly as she had been used to do, I committed my first
crime. I appropriated one thousand dollars of the money intrusted to my
care, and gave it to her for her personal adornment. I saw her decked
in the robes purchased at the sacrifice of my honor. I knew that I had
become a thief for her sake, and yet I gloried in her peerless beauty,
and never loved her as passionately as on that night when I heard her
spoken of as the most beautiful woman in all that crowded assemblage.
“It was not love I felt for her, but a blind infatuation that led me
on to repeat my first crime time and again, until from very terror of
detection I determined to quit the country. Evelyn encouraged me in
this determination, until, just one day previous to that on which I
was to have taken my departure for Europe, where I hoped to earn the
wherewithal to repay the large sums I had purloined, I was arrested
on the charge of forgery, a check having been presented at the bank
bearing the signature of one of our wealthiest depositors, but written
in a hand that was instantly recognized as my own.
“I could almost have sworn it myself to be my own handwriting, so
perfect and faultless was the imitation; but after the first shock of
this awful accusation was over I recognized it as the work of my wife,
who had often boasted of her talent in copying the handwriting of any
person whose penmanship she had ever studied.
“I made no charge against her at the time; indeed, I think the shock
of the discovery deprived me for a time of my reason, and I remember
nothing definitely until I recovered to find myself in a prison cell,
branded as a felon, and doomed to years of confinement.
“When at last, after five years’ imprisonment, the full realization of
my position was brought home to me, I swore a bitter and terrible oath
of vengeance on the woman who had dragged me down to the lowest depths
of degradation, on her and her offspring forever.
“I was allowed a limited communication with friends in the outside
world, who had known and respected me in the days of my prosperity,
and from them I learned that Evelyn, who had succeeded in obtaining a
divorce from me, had married a retired merchant named Oscar Hilton, and
was living the luxurious life of which she had been always so fond.
“From these friends, also, I learned that she had given birth, some
two months previous to her marriage with Hilton, to a female child,
to whom, after her usual romantic notions, she had given the name of
Cleopatra’s handmaiden, Iris.
“I believed at the time, as I believe now, that you, Iris, are my child
as surely as you are Evelyn Hilton’s, and I claim an equal right to
your obedience.
“I have no love for you, I must tell you frankly; you are too much like
the woman who has cursed my life, and made me the reckless wretch I am
to-day. You are beautiful as a siren, with the fatal beauty that lured
me to destruction, and I have resolved that you shall never betray a
good man’s trust as your mother betrayed mine.
“You are my child, Iris Trisilian, and you shall stay with me and do my
bidding; nay, it is useless for you to glance so significantly toward
the door--as well might a bird hope to escape the toils of a charmer,
as you expect to leave my care.”
The man who had called himself Charles Broughton took forcible
possession of the girl’s hands now, and attempted to seat her in
the chair near which she stood; but at this moment the sound of low
knocking on the door interrupted him.
Something in the expression of her face half frightened Charles
Broughton, and grasping her arm almost rudely, he whispered:
“Do not contradict anything I say, no matter how far I may depart from
the truth. Do not dare to carry out the defiance your looks express,
if you would not have me brand you as the daughter of a felon--and not
only the child of a forger, but of an escaped convict. Say one word
to betray me, and the proud aristocrat who has declared his love for
you--the haughty Chester St. John, who is so proud of his spotless
reputation and ancient lineage--shall know you as the offspring of
Carleton Tresilian. Ah, I think that was some one knocking on the
door--come in!” And Charles Broughton threw himself negligently into
a chair at some distance from Iris, who was sitting now with her head
thrown back among the cushions of an easy-chair, her hands locked
tightly together in her lap, and those terrible words to which she had
listened a moment before repeating themselves over and over again in
her tortured brain--“the child of an escaped convict.”