"THE GIRL IS DOOMED!--SHE HAS SEALED HER OWN FATE!"
Edith looked very lovely when her toilet for the evening was
completed.
We have never seen her in any but very ordinary costumes, for she had
worn mourning for her dear ones for two years, but if she was
attractive in these somber garments, symbols of her sorrows, she was a
hundred-fold more so in the spotless and dainty dress which was almost
the only souvenir that she possessed of those happy, beautiful days
when she had lived in a Fifth avenue palace, and was the petted
darling of fortune.
There was not a single ornament about her, excepting the pretty chain
and diamond-hearted shamrock which Mrs. Weld had that evening given to
her, and which she had involuntarily kissed before clasping it about
her neck.
Mrs. Goddard had commissioned her to superintend the dressing-rooms,
to see that the maids provided everything needful for the comfort of
her guests and to look in upon them occasionally and ascertain if
they were attending to their duties, until everybody had arrived;
after which she was to come to her behind the scenes in the
carriage-house.
Thus, after her toilet was completed, she descended to the second
floor, to see that these orders were carried out.
In the ladies' dressing-rooms, she found everything in the nicest
possible order, and then passed on to those allotted to the gentlemen,
in one of which she found that the maids had neglected to provide
drinking water.
She was upon the point of leaving the room to have the matter attended
to, when Mr. Goddard, attired in full evening dress, even to gloves,
entered.
"Where is Mollie?" he inquired, but with a visible start of surprise,
as he noticed Edith's exceeding loveliness.
"I think she is in one of the other rooms," she replied. "Shall I call
her for you?"
"Yes, if you please; or--" with a lingering glance of
admiration--"perhaps you will help me with these gloves. I find it
troublesome to button them."
"Certainly," replied the young girl, but flushing beneath his look,
and, taking the silver button-hook from him, she proceeded to perform
the simple service for him, but noticed, while doing so, the taint of
liquor on his breath.
"Thank you," he said, appreciatively, when the last button was
fastened. Then bending lower to look into her eyes, he added, softly:
"How lovely you are to-night, Miss Edith!"
She drew herself away from him, with an air of offended dignity, and
would have passed from the room had he not placed himself directly in
her way, thus cutting off her escape.
"Nay, nay, pretty one; do not be so shy of me," he went on,
insinuatingly. "Why have you avoided me of late? We have not had one
of our cozy social chats for a long time. Did madam's unreasonable fit
of jealousy that day in the library frighten you? Pray, do not mind
her--she has always been like that ever since--well, for many years."
"Mr. Goddard! I beg you will cease. I cannot listen to you!" cried
Edith. "Let me pass, if you please. I have an order to give one of the
housemaids."
"Tut! tut! little one; the order can wait, and it is not kind of you
to fly at me like that. I have been drawn toward you ever since you
came into the family, and every day only serves to strengthen the
spell that you have been weaving about me. Come now, tell me that you
will try to return my fondness for you--"
"Mr. Goddard! what is the meaning of this strange language? You have
no right to address me thus; it is an insult to me--a wicked wrong
against your wife--"
"My wife!" the man burst forth, mockingly, and with a strangely bitter
laugh.
A frown contracted his brow, and his lips were compressed into a
vindictive line, as he again bent toward the fair girl.
"I do not love her," he said, hoarsely; "she has killed all my
affection for her by her infernally variable moods, her jealousy, her
vanity, and her inordinate passion for worldly pleasure, to the
exclusion of all home responsibilities. Moreover--"
"I must not listen to you! Oh! let me go!" cried Edith, in a voice of
distress.
Before Edith was aware of his intention, he bent his lips close to her
face, and whispered something, in swift sentences, that made her
shrink from him with a sudden cry of mingled pain and dismay, and
cover her ears with her pretty hands.
"I do not believe it!" she panted; "oh! I cannot believe it. I am sure
you do not know what you are saying, Mr. Goddard."
Her words appeared to arouse him to a sense of the fact that he was
compromising himself most miserably in her estimation.
"No, I don't suppose you can," he muttered, a half-dazed expression on
his face; "and I've no business to be telling you any such things.
But, all the same, I am very fond of you, pretty one, and I do not
believe this is any place for you. You are too fair and sweet to
serve a woman with such a disposition as madam possesses, and I wish
you would leave her when we go back to the city. I know you are poor,
and have no friends upon whom you can depend; but I would settle a
comfortable annuity upon you, so that you could be independent, and
make a pretty little home for your--"
"How dare you talk to me like this? Do you think I have no pride--no
self-respect?" Edith demanded, as she haughtily threw back her proud
head and confronted the man with blazing eyes.
Her act and the flash of the diamond attracted his attention to the
little chain and shamrock upon her breast.
The sight seemed to paralyze him for a moment, for he stood like one
turned to marble.
"Where did you get it?" he at last demanded, in a scarcely, audible
voice, as he pointed a trembling finger at the jewel. "Tell me!--tell
me! how came you by it?"
Edith regarded him with astonishment.
Involuntarily she put up her hand and covered the ornament from his
gaze.
"It was given to me," she briefly replied.
"Who gave it to you?"
"A friend."
"Was it your--a relative?" cried the man, in a hoarse whisper.
"No, it was simply a friend."
"Tell me who!"
Edith thought a moment. If she should tell Mr. Goddard that the
shamrock had been given to her by the housekeeper, it might subject
the woman to an unpleasant interview with the master of the house,
and, perhaps, place her in a very awkward position.
She resolved upon the only course left--that of refusing to reveal the
name of the giver.
"All that I can tell you, Mr. Goddard," she gravely said, at last, "is
that the chain and ornament were given to me very recently by an aged
friend--"
"Aged!" the man interposed, eagerly.
"Yes, by a person who must be at least sixty years of age," the young
girl replied.
"Ah!" The ejaculation was one of supreme relief. "Excuse me, Miss
Allen!" he continued, in a more natural manner than he had yet spoken.
"I did not mean to be curious, but--a--a person whom I once knew had
an ornament very similar to the one you wear--"
He was interrupted just at this point by the sound of a rich, mellow
laugh that echoed down the hall like a strain of sweetest music;
whereupon Gerald Goddard jumped as if some one had dealt him a heavy
blow on the back.
"Good Heaven! who was that?" he cried, with livid lips.
But Edith, taking advantage of the diversion, glided swiftly from the
room, telling herself that nothing could induce her to dwell with the
family a single day after their return to the city, and that she would
take care not to come in contact with Mr. Goddard again--at least to
be alone with him--while she did remain with his wife.
The man stood motionless for a moment after her departure, as if
waiting for the sound, which had so startled him, to be repeated.
But it was not, and going to the door, he peered into the hall to see
who was there.
There was no one visible save the housekeeper, who just at that
moment, accosted a housemaid, to whom she appeared to be giving some
directions.
"Ah! it was only one of the guests," he muttered, "but the voice was
wonderfully like--like--Ugh!"
He waited a few moments longer, trying to compose his nerves, which
had been sadly unstrung, both by the wine he had drank in much larger
quantities than usual, and the incidents that had just occurred, and
then sought his own room, where he rang for a brandy-and-soda, and
after taking it, went below to attend to his duties as host.
But neither he nor Edith dreamed that their recent interview had been
observed by a third party, or had seen the white, convulsed face that
had been looking in upon them, between the blinds at one of the
windows, near which they had been standing.
Anna Goddard had sought her own room, directly after dinner, to make
some little change in her toilet, and get her gloves, which she had
left lying upon her dressing case.
As she opened the door of her boudoir she came very near giving
utterance to a scream of fear upon coming face to face with a man.
The man was Emil Correlli, who had gained entrance to the apartment by
climbing the vine trellis which led to the window. His secret return
was in accordance with a plan previously agreed upon.
He informed his sister that he had sent a card of invitation to Mrs.
Stewart of the Copley Square Hotel.
"I am glad you did," she responded; "I have long desired to meet her."
They then proceeded to discuss the important event of the evening, and
Mrs. Goddard assured him that their plot was progressing admirably.
Still, she manifested a twinge of remorse as she thought of the
despicable trick she had devised against the fair girl whom her
brother was so eager to possess.
"Anna, you must not fail me now!" he exclaimed, "or I will never
forgive you! The girl must be mine, or--"
"Hush!" she interposed, holding up her finger to check him. "Did some
one knock?"
"I heard nothing."
"Wait, I will see," she said, and cautiously opened the door. No one
was there.
"It was only a false alarm," she murmured, glancing down the hall;
then she started, as if stung, as she caught sight of two figures in
the room diagonally opposite hers.
Her face grew ghastly, but her eyes blazed with a tiger-like ferocity.
She closed the door noiselessly, then with stealthy, cat-like
movements, she stole toward the French door, leading out upon the
veranda, throwing a long mantle over her light dress and bare
shoulders. Then she passed out, and crept along the veranda toward a
window of the room where her husband and Edith were talking.
She could see them distinctly through the slats of the blinds, which
were movable--could see the man bending toward the graceful girl, whom
she had never seen so beautiful as now, his face eager, a wistful
light burning in his eyes, while his lips moved rapidly with the tale
that he was pouring into her ears.
She could not hear a word, but her jealous heart imputed the very
worst to him.
She could see that Edith repudiated him--that she was indignant and
dismayed; but this circumstance did not soothe her in the least.
It was enough to arouse all the worst elements of her fiery nature to
know that the girl's charms were alluring the man whom she worshiped,
and a very demon of jealousy and hatred possessed her.
She watched them until she saw her husband give that guilty start, of
which Edith took advantage to escape, and then, her hands clenched
until the nails almost pierced the tender flesh, her lips
convulsed--her whole face distorted with passion and pain, she turned
from the spot.
"I have no longer any conscience," she hissed, as she sped swiftly
back to her room. "The girl is doomed--she has sealed her own fate. As
for him--if I did not love him so, I would--"
A shudder completed her sentence, but smoothing her face, she removed
her wraps, and went to tell her brother that she must go below, but
would have his dinner sent up immediately.
Then drawing on her gloves, she hastened down to join her guests in
the drawing-room.