The instant Harry Kendal sprang toward the veiled woman she sprang
backward, as though anticipating the movement, and quick as a flash she
overturned the candle, just as he tore the veil from her face.
A low, taunting laugh broke from her lips through the inky darkness of
the room. In a trice she had torn herself free from his grasp, and like
a flash she had sped from the room and down the narrow hall and
stairway, like a storm-driven swallow, leaving her companion stumbling
about the place, and giving vent to curses loud and deep as he fumbled
about his vest pocket for matches.
The veiled woman never stopped until she reached the street, then paused
for a moment and looked back as she reached the nearest gas lamp.
As the flickering rays of the street lamp fell athwart her face, the
features of Nadine Holt were clearly revealed, her black eyes blazing,
and her jet black hair streaming wildly about her face.
"How strange!" she panted, "that this idea of fortune telling should
have come to me as a means of gaining my living! I was driven to do
something. And that he should have been the very first patron to come to
me--he, of all others! He is tracking me down because I maimed the girl
whom he is so soon to wed--yes, tracking me down to throw me into
prison--and yet he was once my lover! It is always the way. When a man's
heart grows cold to one love, and another's face has charmed him, it
seems to me as though men have a cruel, feverish desire to thrust the
first love from them at whatever cost. But I will be revenged upon him!
I will live to make his very life a torture; but I shall do it through
Dorothy Glenn. I will go to Dorothy Glenn at once, and we shall see what
will happen then."
Meanwhile, after much fumbling and imprecations loud and deep, Kendal
succeeded in striking a match and finding the overturned bit of wax
taper, which he hastily lighted, peering cautiously into the inky
darkness which surrounded him.
He was tired and exhausted, and he told himself that he would turn in at
the nearest hotel, take a good night's rest, and mature his plans on the
morrow for finding Dorothy.
Meanwhile, let us go back, dear reader, to the hour in which our
heroine, little Dorothy, decided to leave Gray Gables.
For some moments after Harry Kendal had left her in anger in the
corridor she stood quite still--stood there long after the sound of his
footsteps had died away, trying to realize the full purport of his
words--that their engagement was at an end, and that they had parted
forever.
The whole world seemed to stand still about her. Then, like one suddenly
dazed, she turned and crept into her own room. Katy was there awaiting
her.
She suffered the girl to place her in a chair, to take the faded
blossoms from her hand and from her corsage, to unfasten the strings of
pearls, and to remove her ball dress.
By degrees she had informed Katy of her regaining her sight, and the
poor girl's joy knew no bounds.
She wondered greatly how Dorothy could feel so downcast in such an hour,
and she never once heeded Dorothy's sad words--that she was going to
leave Gray Gables before the dawn, as there was no one there who loved
her.
It was so late when Katy sought her own couch that she soon dropped into
a deep sleep. This Dorothy had watched for with the greatest impatience.
She soon rose, robed herself in a dark dress and Katy's long cloak, and
was soon ready for the great undertaking which she had mapped out for
herself.
Hastily writing a note, she placed it where Katy's eyes would be sure to
fall upon it early the next morning; then she stole quietly from the
room. The great clock in the corridor below struck three as she passed
it with bated breath and trembling in every limb.
She opened the door softly and stole out into the chill, raw night.
There was no one in this wide world to miss her, no one to care what
became of her! She was in every one's way. Only one thought suggested
itself to her--to end it all. Perhaps Harry Kendal would feel very sorry
when the news came to him on the morrow that she was dead--she whom he
had spurned so cruelly only the night before. And perhaps he would throw
himself beside her cold, dead body and wish that he had been less cruel
to her, and cry out:
"Oh, if God would but roll back His universe and give me yesterday!"
She had no fixed destination, but walked on and on, until she suddenly
found herself down by the Yonkers Boat Club House, that stretched its
dark shadow afar out into the river. It was connected with the shore by
a long, narrow plank walk.
Mechanically Dorothy crept down the narrow, winding stairway that led to
it. Midway on the plank walk she paused, clung desperately to the rail
and looked fearfully down into the dark, flowing river that rushed on so
madly but a few feet below her.
Only a few flickering stars would see and know all, she told herself.
There would be but a plunge, a deathly shiver as her warm body came in
contact with the icy waves, a moment of choking, a terrible sensation,
then all would be over--her troubles would be at an end!
What cared she for the wealth of a hundred Gray Gables and princely
estates when love's boon was denied her?
Even in that hour and in that weird place she thought of the words
another heart-broken girl had uttered long years before:
"You have learned to love another,
You have broken every vow;
We have parted from each other,
And my heart is lonely now.
"Oh! was it well to sever
This fond heart from thine forever?
Can I forget thee? Never!
Farewell, lost love, forever!
"We have met, and we have parted,
But I uttered scarce a word;
But, God! how my poor heart started
When thy well-known voice I heard!
"Oh! woman's love will grieve her,
And woman's pride will leave her;
Life has fled when love deceives her,
Farewell--farewell forever!"
"I am so young to die!" sobbed Dorothy. "I haven't done very much good
in the world, but surely I have done no wrong."
Then it occurred to her suddenly--a little trifle which she had quite
forgotten:
She had taken Nadine Holt's lover from her, and the girl was
broken-hearted over his loss; and now Heaven had, in turn, taken him
from her. This was God's vengeance upon her.
Could even Nadine Holt see her now she would feel sorry and find pity
for her.
Suddenly, to her intense amazement, Dorothy saw a man hurrying along the
high cliff just above where she stood. He was advancing toward her with
hasty strides that broke almost into a run.
Dorothy noticed that he carried a large black bundle in his arms, and
that he was heading directly toward the boat house.
She saw him lean forward, raise the bundle quickly and dash it into the
river, turn rapidly, and break into a quick run in the opposite
direction.
The bundle did not quite reach the water's edge, she saw; he had missed
his aim.
Dorothy stopped short and peered over the rails at it, wondering what it
could contain.
As she did so she observed that there was motion within the small, dark
bundle. It contained some living thing, she felt quite sure.
Dare she go and examine it? she asked herself. Perhaps it was some poor
animal doomed to death that was bound up in that unsightly bundle.
Her heart stirred with pity at the thought, and at that moment a cry,
faint and muffled, broke the stillness of the night.
It emanated from the dark bundle. Quick as a flash Dorothy retraced her
steps until she reached the bank, and down this she clambered with
alacrity.
But when she was almost within reach of the bundle it rolled down into
the water with a splash, and the mad waves covered it.
With a cry Dorothy sprang forward just in time, and caught it as the
undertow was bearing it out into the deep water.
Again there was a quick cry and struggle within the bundle. In a
twinkling Dorothy had torn off the wrappings.
"Oh, God in Heaven!" she cried, "it is a little child!"