A TERRIBLE REVELATION.
The next morning after her adventure with Ellen Carson, Allison
left New York for Newport, where the Brewster villa was reopened,
with John Hubbard to play the part of proprietor and host, and
mature his plans for the capture of the beautiful heiress for whom
and whose money he had so long been scheming.
To Allison the thought of spending the entire summer in the same
house with the man whom she so disliked seemed intolerable, and she
became very restless and rebellious in view of the prospect before
her ere a week had passed.
“What shall I do with myself during all the years that will
intervene before his authority over me or my fortune will expire?”
she asked herself, with a feeling of excessive impatience, one day
during the second week of their sojourn at Newport.
Yet the man was unwearied in his attentions, unvarying in his
kindness to her. He spared no trouble to give her pleasure, he
grumbled at no expense if he could but see her smiling and happy,
and be allowed to bask in her presence.
“I cannot live an idle, aimless life,” she mused, “while I am
waiting for Gerald to make his fortune. Oh, what a proud, obstinate
boy! But why doesn’t he write to me? I have not heard from him once
since coming to Newport,” she sighed, with a troubled expression.
“I would like to teach,” she went on, after a moment of thought;
“but it hardly seems right for me, with my fortune, to apply for a
position which would otherwise be filled by a girl who must support
herself. But something I must do to break away from this bondage.
Oh, I know!” with an eager start. “It will be just the most
delightful plan! I will have a chaperon, and I will travel. It will
be such a blessed relief to get away from--him!”
And, much elated with what she considered a very clever plan, she
sought her guardian and made known her wish to go abroad.
The man glanced sharply at her the moment he comprehended her
purpose; then sat quietly listening to her until she concluded the
rehearsal of her plan, which was, in the main, that she wished to
have at least a couple of years of foreign travel before making her
début in New York society--which it would not be etiquette for her
to do until her season of mourning was over.
When she was through he changed his seat to one beside her, and
remarked, with a confidential look and smile:
“Really, Allison, I think it rather singular that you and I both
should have the same project in view.”
She glanced up at him in surprise.
“Why, have you been planning such a trip for me?” she questioned,
with a momentary twinge of conscience, lest she had been more
unjust toward him than he merited.
“Yes,” he replied, in a tone which he could not make quite steady,
for the proposal he was about to make was a very momentous one to
him. “You are now through school, and it is but right that you
should see something of the world. I have had this in mind for
some time, and have been trying to arrange for it. I now have my
business in such shape that I can leave it indefinitely, and we
will have a long holiday, Allison; we will spare neither time nor
money, and you shall go wherever your sweet will inclines.”
The girl shot one quick, startled look at her companion; then a
burning flush suffused her neck, cheek and brow, for his tone
had grown suspiciously tender and tremulous, and she dreaded
inexpressibly what she feared was to come.
“Oh, but I did not once think of--of taking you from your business
to go with me,” she hastened to say. “I can have a chaperon, you
know; there is Miss Wilber, my teacher in history, who has often
attended young ladies abroad during summer vacations. She is out of
health, and will not teach the coming year, and I am sure she would
be glad to go with me; she would be a delightful companion, too,
for she is so well posted in history, and has been about so much
she is a perfect encyclopedia of facts, legends and traditions. I
should feel perfectly safe, and be very happy with her, also.”
“Ah, yes; no doubt it would be a very good arrangement, both for
yourself and the lady,” rejoined John Hubbard, when Allison paused,
although a frown swept over his face at her evident eagerness
to substitute her own plan for his; “but, my dear child, I could
never consent to let you go away to Europe like that; I should
never know one moment of peace during your absence. Allison,” with
sudden and vehement earnestness, “do you remember what I told you
only a few months ago--that I have loved you ever since you were a
little girl, and that, during all those years, I have had only one
aim in life--that of eventually winning you for my wife? Think of
it, Allison! I have lived nearly eleven years with this one hope
to feed upon and cheer me. I know that I am somewhat older than
you, but my affection is none the less strong and true--indeed,
having nursed my hopes so long, my love is far more intense than it
could have been at the age when a man usually chooses his wife. My
darling, I adore you; my life is bound up in you; I must win you,
or the world will henceforth be a blank to me, and during the last
six months I have yearned for this moment more than I can express.
Allison, you will marry me; you will be my wife, and we will go
abroad for our honeymoon. I will live only to make you happy, and
you shall go where you like if you will but give me the right to go
with you.”
He had spoken so rapidly that Allison could not have interrupted
him if she had wished; he had poured out his passionate avowal with
such resistless vehemence that she was stricken dumb, and sat with
averted face, an almost sickening sense of repugnance, even fear,
oppressing her.
As he concluded he leaned forward, laying his hand upon hers,
which were tensely clasped upon her lap, and tried to look into her
downcast eyes.
His touch broke the spell upon her.
Almost involuntarily she shrank from him, snatching her hands from
his, a visible shiver creeping over her, and driving every particle
of color from her face.
“Oh,” she gasped, as if oppressed by some terrible weight upon her
chest, “why will you say such things to me? No, no; it cannot be!”
The man’s countenance changed, as if he had been smitten a sharp
and sudden blow.
“Do not tell me that,” he breathed, in a hoarse, unnatural voice.
“I cannot bear it. I have lived too long with only this one hope to
sustain me, to have it ruthlessly wrested from me at this late day.”
Something in the man’s tone--a sort of despairing, appealing
note--sent a wave of pity coursing through Allison’s heart.
“I am sorry if I have pained you,” she faltered; “but--I cannot
love you, Mr. Hubbard, and so I must not marry you.”
“I will make you love me, Allison,” he returned, with almost
pathetic earnestness. “Out of the superabundance of my own
affection I will nourish yours until your heart will turn to me as
naturally as a flower turns to the sun.”
But Allison only shrank farther from him.
“It is impossible; it can never be,” she said, so decidedly there
was no mistaking her determination to settle the matter for all
time.
“Why?” he demanded, sharply, but with quivering lips. “Why can you
never love me? How is it that you are so positive?”
“I do not know that I can tell you why; it is not easy to analyze
one’s feelings,” Allison responded constrainedly. “I only know that
I do not love you and that it would be a great sin to become your
wife without loving you.”
“Then it must be because some one stands between us,” said John
Hubbard, with jealous bitterness. “Tell me! Is is so? Do you love
some one else?”
There was now a note of impatient authority in his tone that
aroused Allison’s antagonism and a spirit of recklessness. Then,
too, his love-making was so repulsive to her she felt that she
could not endure it a moment longer. Perhaps, she thought, if she
should confess the truth to him it would put an end to his hopes
and emancipate her from all persecutions of this nature in the
future.
“Yes,” she admitted, after a moment of hesitation, a vivid flush
suffusing her face, “that is the reason.”
“Aha!” he breathed, hoarsely, the veins upon his temples standing
out hard and full. “So you confess it! Who is he? Who is he?”
His tone was almost savage, his aspect so vindictive that Allison
was aroused in proportion.
She turned upon him with a haughty air, and met his lowering eyes
with a clear, cold glance.
“That is my own secret,” she frigidly returned.
“Ha, ha! So you fondly believe it is a secret, do you?” he
mockingly retorted. “You imagine that no one has eyes or
perceptions to discern the signs of the times? My haughty little
lady, your ‘secret’ is no secret; I have read your heart, like an
open book, for many a long year.”
“Very well, then; if you are so well versed in mind reading there
is no need of your asking information regarding what you already
know,” said the fair girl, with quiet sarcasm.
“Perhaps not; but I wish to have my suspicions corroborated by
the testimony of your own lips. I want to be sure that my fate is
irrevocably sealed before I bow to it. So, tell me, is it Gerald
Winchester whom you love? Is he the rival upon whom you expect to
bestow your peerless self and your enviable fortune?”
Again Allison flushed a deep and conscious crimson. The man’s
manner had grown so coarse and repulsive, while his mocking
reference to Gerald set all her pulses tingling with indignation
and defiance, and a desire to stand up in defense of her lover.
“And suppose you are right in your surmise--what then?” she
demanded, proudly, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
“In that case, I tell you that you are doomed to be terribly
disappointed, for I swear that you shall never marry that upstart!
He shall never have the privilege of handling one dollar of Adam
Brewster’s fortune!” snarled the man, but so beside himself with
rage his voice was hardly audible.
Allison was now thoroughly angry and disgusted.
She sprang to her feet and confronted her companion with haughty
mien and blazing eyes.
“You are exceedingly presuming,” she began scornfully. “You are
overstepping the bounds of your authority as my guardian, for I
certainly have and shall exercise the right to choose for myself
whom I will marry, and----”
“And what, Allison?” questioned John Hubbard, growing very white as
she suddenly paused. “This is a matter that must be settled, here
and now, so you may as well express yourself freely.”
“I was simply going to observe that my choice would certainly not
fall upon yourself, even were I heart-whole,” she retorted, with
startling candor, and driven to utter defiance by his arbitrary
tone and manner.
The man flushed scarlet beneath the scathing words; then a lurid
light sprang into his eyes.
“I am afraid you do not realize what you are doing, Miss Brewster,
by so scornfully rejecting my suit,” he said, with an evident
effort for self-control.
“You have driven me to plain speaking, sir,” Allison replied more
calmly. “You would not accept my courteous rejection of your
proposals, and you have made me very angry by your slighting
remarks about Mr. Winchester, whom you have always appeared to
hate, and whom you have also shamefully persecuted.”
“Yes, I have hated and do still hate him, the insufferable upstart,
with his assumption of high-toned airs, which are entirely at
variance with the beggardly position he has always occupied,” Mr.
Hubbard almost hissed, a cold glitter in his eyes, and with the old
vicious gleam of his white teeth beneath his mustache. “More than
that,” he resumed cruelly, “I swore long ago that he should never
marry you, as I plainly saw he was aiming to do by worming himself
into the confidence of your father and making love to you on the
sly----”
“If you please, Mr. Hubbard, I think we have discussed this subject
sufficiently, and I would like to change it,” Allison here icily
interposed. “I have decided that I will spend the next two years
traveling; therefore, I shall write to Miss Wilber this evening
to----”
“Not quite so fast, my young lady, if you please,” her guardian
rudely interrupted. “You appear to forget or ignore the fact that
you are under my authority, and are not free to arrange your
movements exactly as you like without my consent.”
“I am more than eighteen years of age, Mr. Hubbard,” said Allison,
proudly, “and I am capable of thinking and acting for myself in
all ways except the management of my fortune. Business I do not
understand, and I bow to the decree of my father’s will that you
shall act as my agent financially; but I am no longer a child, to
be told that I cannot go here or there, provided I am properly
attended, and I shall arrange to go abroad immediately, with Miss
Wilber as my chaperon.”
“Excuse me, Miss Brewster, but you will not go abroad this
summer, unless you go under my protection, and as my wife,” John
Hubbard observed, with a peculiar smile, that was exceedingly
exasperating, and which also sent a strange chill to the heart
of his listener. “You’d better be sensible and listen to reason,
Allison,” he continued more gently, after a moment of silence. “If
you will accede to my proposal, your future may be one long idyl
of happiness; your every wish shall be gratified; you shall be a
queen--I your slave. But,” sternly, as the girl made an impatient
gesture, “if you defy me, I----”
“Well, what if I defy you?” she cried, turning upon him with the
air of a princess.
“I have it in my power to crush you.”
A light, scornful laugh rippled over Allison’s red lips.
The idea of a man like John Hubbard, whom, all her life, she had
instinctively regarded as her inferior, being able to “crush” her,
Adam Brewster’s daughter, and heiress to a million or more, seemed
ludicrous in the extreme.
“You appear to be skeptical regarding my powers, Miss Brewster,”
the man observed, with a crafty smile, but with a face that was
ghastly white from his intense anger.
“Well, yes, I am,” she dryly responded, as she drew forth her watch
and glanced at the time. “Excuse me,” she added coldly, “but I have
an engagement to drive at four.”
She was about to turn away and leave the room when her companion
seized her hand in a vise-like grip, and, bending before her, gazed
straight into her eyes with a look that sent a cold chill running
down her back.
“Once more, and for the last time--and think well before you answer
me--will you marry me, Allison?” he questioned, through his tightly
locked teeth.
“No! a thousand times, no!” she cried, in a ringing tone; “and if
you ever broach the subject again I will appeal to be set free from
your guardianship. I will not submit to such persecution.”
“Ha, ha! You will not need to appeal to be freed from my
authority!” he retorted, with an almost fiendish leer.
“Ah! you are going to resign your position, perhaps?” said Allison,
with an eagerness which but too plainly betrayed her delight at
such a prospect.
“You would be glad to have me do so, no doubt,” he sneered.
“Yes, I think I would,” the girl gravely returned, after a moment
of thought. “After what has occurred to-day I think it would be
unpleasant for both of us to continue our present relations.”
“Very well; you shall be gratified, for it is my purpose to resign
all authority over you,” said John Hubbard, with peculiar emphasis.
Then he added, with something between a sigh and a groan, “I would
have spared you this, Allison, and it is not too late even now
to--to save you, if you will but reconsider your rejection of
me----”
Allison checked him with an imperative gesture.
“I will have no more of that,” she said, haughtily. “But what do
you mean? From what is it not too late to save me? Why are you
about to resign your guardianship of me?”
“To answer your last question will be to reply to all--because I
was appointed as guardian to Adam Brewster’s daughter, but--you are
no child of the late banker!”